The Grayhound - new arrival in Gloucester Waterways Museum exhibition on Floor 2 - and new cards

The Grayhound - Stamp collage by Rachel Markwick

 I have added a framed limited edition  stamp collage print of the Grayhound  to the other pictures of ships currently in my exhibition in the Waterways Museum,  Llanthony Warehouse in Gloucester docks. Also available in the museum is a selection of my cards mainly featuring ships and flags.
Cards are priced at £2.50 each or £10 for  5 . These are also on Floor 2 but need to be purchased  in the shop on the Ground floor .  The exhibition continues on until October, but will update on  closing date, as it may be extended.

Here are some of the latest additions to my range of cards:

The Atyla, The Grayhound, The White Heather and La Malouine  in Gloucester Docks

Renaming a ship .. "The Blue Lady" could be renamed " La Semeuse Bleue"

La Semeuse - Stamp Collage by Rachel Markwick 

A few years ago I made a stamp collage ship using the iconic French stamp called "La Semeuse" or in English, "The Sower".  I used them to make the sails and my original vessel duly sailed off to a new home in Bologna, Italy.  Limited edition Prints are also available! 

  Subsequently, with a dearth of Blue "La Semeuse" stamps in my stock, a new ship emerged and was named "The Blue Lady". 

The Blue Lady - Stamp Collage by Rachel Markwick 

 She also found a new home in West Virginia, USA.  I have prints available, a framed version of which is currently on show in the National Waterways Museum, in Gloucester Docks.  She still goes by the name of The Blue Lady, but new owners of ships often rename them, so who knows, perhaps she could become "La Semeuse Bleue".


See more ships on my website
www.rachelmarkwick.co.uk

Unframed Prints available

Voyages of Discovery, my exhibition of Stamp Collages at the National Waterways Museum continues on until September, and there has already  been a lot of interest in the ships which are the subjects of most of the pictures.on show.

Staff and visitors at the exhibition in the National Waterways Museum May 2019

  You can read the ships' stories on previous blog posts, and information is also available in the museum display.  During the summer months the museum is open every day from 10 - 5.
Pictures can  be supplied as unframed prints, and in various sizes. Print quality is excellent and colour is guaranteed fast for 70 years + although I may not be around by then to check on it!! Take a look at my website www.rachelmarkwick.co.uk  to see all the pictures.   

COMING SOON! : Tall Ships Festival May 24th - 27th and my exhibition open from 16th May onwards ...

The Tall Ships Festival will be coming to Gloucester again this year from  24th - 27th May - Spring Bank Holiday week-end.

The Atyla in Gloucester Docks 

It's always a great event and I'm particularly excited about it this year as an exhibition of my Stamp Collage pictures of Ships will also be on show in  Gloucester Waterways Museum  from 16th May, through the Festival period and then on for several months - dates still to be finalised.  Several of the collages depict some of the tall ships which visited in 2017  including La Malouine, the Johanna Lucretia and the Atyla.  The White Heather has been undergoing a refit, and I'm not sure if she's finished, but my  picture of her, as she was two years ago, will be on show.
You will find the exhibition upstairs next to the new Museum Library.  There is so much to see in the museum, located right on the dockside, and with its own shop and cafe.  It's well worth the entrance fee which entitles you to return any number of times for a whole year.
My work includes originals and prints, which can be purchased by contacting me direct.  Cards will be available to buy from the museum shop. 

Severn Trows, working vessels on the River Severn

I was in Worcester yesterday and came across this little plaque showing a Severn Trow, by  the bridge across the River Severn.

The plaque reads, "Up to the mid-nineteenth century, this River was the main commercial artery of the West Midlands linking to the sea at Bristol. The Severn Trow was one of the vessels used, typified by its open gold, flat bottom and D shaped stern. "

The  Severn Trows  plied their trade on the river many years ago, but are no longer in use. You can see the remains of some of these little vessels, including the Alma and Jonadab  at the ships' graveyard at Purton, Gloucestershire, where many other types of vessels were hulked to shore up the banks of the river.   I came across a scale model of the Severn Trow  Norah,  in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich  and made a stamp collage depicting her in full sail  in her heyday. She was built in 1968 and sadly beached one hundred years later.   A  framed print is currently on show in the exhibition, Stamping Ground 2 in Gloucester Guildhall, Eastgate Street until 31st October .

Severn Trow, Norah, Stamp Collage by Rachel Markwick 

Johanna Lucretia, Stamp Collage . Now on show at Gloucester Guildhall until 30th October 2018

The Tall ships festival last year provided me with much inspiration for stamp collages, but I took a long time before embarking on my voyage of discovery and creating several new pictures!

The Johanna Lucretia is  just one of these but unlike others seen in the dock area during the festival,  I've portrayed her out on the high seas where she is often to be found. She was built in Belgium in 1945 and if you look  closely you will notice that I've used some old Belgian stamps to recreate her hull.

 For several of my latest ship collages, I've enjoyed using a new technique which is to sew the rigging using thread and scrim. She's technically known as a Topsail Schooner, and is 29 metres in length. In 1989 she was refitted in Gloucester by the firm T.Nielsen &  Co and used for training and chartered trips. She was found abandoned again in Gloucester Docks in 2008 and her current owners had to carry out another major restoration.

You can see the original Stamp Collage of the Johanna Lucretia in the exhibition, Stamping Ground 2, at Gloucester Guildhall until  30th October 2018 in the upstairs exhibition hall. Limited edition prints are also available and you can see a framed example of one of these at the joint exhibition called "Between Seeing and Dreaming", at The Old Passage Inn, Arlingham which will be on until the end of this year.   Gloucester Guildhall Box Office also have cards on sale  of many of the pictures in the exhibition and additional flags too! 

How long does it take?

How long does it take you to make a picture? That's a question artists are often asked.  A good answer is, "A lifetime of experimenting", or in the case of this particular piece, almost a year!

Not that I've been physically working on it for all that time, but I went with a good friend to the wonderful Tall Ships festival last May, and La Malouine was moored by the Warehouses in Gloucester docks.d We climbed aboard and were given a tour by one of the crew.

We asked what the name meant and were told that the ship came from St Malo in France.  Using photos taken at the time, and having sorted out suitable stamps I got started a few months later, but have only recently completed the picture .. the brickwork of the warehouses and the windows were a challenge but very absorbing.

For the first time, I've used cotton dipped in acrylic paint to sew in the rigging and am quite pleased with the effect!   And I saw several  beautiful ships that day ... so watch this space! 

Oyez! Oyez!Oyez! at 112.8 decibels!

I didn't really think anything would come of it, when I got in touch with Gloucester's Town Crier, Alan Myatt, in a last ditch effort to get some publicity for my exhibition Stamping Ground at The Guildhall in Gloucester.
However, I was really pleased when he agreed to help me out  when he will be in Gloucester City Centre.  And not only that, but he also got in touch with the Gloucester Review, sending them some photographs and information about me too!  There is a feature on Alan on page 4, in which we can read that he holds the world record for being the loudest town crier and has also acted as toastmaster at a banquet held in the presence of HM the Queen, and lead the Royal car in a procession during the Diamond Jubilee celebrations    in Hitchin Herts, where he also town crier.  So I'm most honoured that he will be mentioning my exhibition alongside other events in Gloucester during the coming week!  The article about Stamping Ground is featured on P20. Sorry to say though, that we share the news this week in the Gloucester Review with the headline "Outrage over badger cull crash court case" on the front page which has made national news.
I really like this Free Community newspaper, available in many outlets in Gloucester and will look out for other editions whenever I'm over there.

!  I really like this Free community newspaper and will make a point of looking out for it whenever I'm in Gloucester - lots of interesting articles to read.

The Guildhall, Gloucester - Stamping Ground - Rachel Markwick's Stamp Collage Exhibition NOW ON

The exhibition, Stamping Ground,  is NOW ON at The Guildhall, 23 Eastgate Street, Gloucester until 29th March .

The Guildhall is right in the centre of Gloucester and is really easy to find, but I met quite a few people yesterday who previously never been there or even knew anything about it!  I think there may be some confusion with Shire Hall, at the other end of the city, which is a very imposing looking building with pillars and steps leading up to it, whereas the Guildhall frontage is quite narrow and  is sandwiched between the  Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society and Dorothy Perkins in Eastgate Street, and right opposite the Eastgate Shopping Centre and Marks and Spencer. You can easily miss it if you're not actually searching for it or looking up to see the banner! And it's a pity to just pass it by as you never know just what may be going on inside!   And it's like a tardis - so much bigger inside than it looks from the street.
I had to wait more than 2 years to get the gallery space for my exhibition, which just shows how popular it is for artists wanting to exhibit their work  here, but unfortunately, unless you advertise it widely yourself, it could go unnoticed as there is no street advertising of the art exhibitions, which is a real shame. The Guildhall do have a brochure and some of the art exhibitions are listed in this bi-monthly guide, but I was rather unlucky as for some reason mine got missed out of the February/March edition !! So I'm hoping that my own posters, showing my stamp collage of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, will get noticed elsewhere around the city and inside the Guildhall building itself, although not outside!

Just one of my pictures on show in The Gallery 2nd Floor of The Guildhall

  And hoping for some press coverage too, as well as the lovely article in March's Cotswold Life (p18).

 Inside the Guildhall is a cinema which shows all the latest films as well as some lesser known and older films. There is a lovely cafe/bar which also offers vegetarian and vegan food. It's a great venue for theatre, comedy, music events, workshops and hosts meetings for many associations, including U3A.  They have a wide range of activities going on, and an elderly gentleman I was talking to recently about it, said he remembered going there to Saturday night dances.  He was surprised to learn that you can still go dancing there too! Passers-by just need to know about it!  

Severn Trow Norah stamp collage

We live not far away from the beautiful River Severn and enjoy walking along the banks at various points including Purton, Arlingham and Gloucester.  At one time, the river would have been busy with vessels such as the Severn trows, known as "open moulded" trows, with a hull constructed of planked wooden frame with an open waist and small decks at bow and stern. The two-masted ketch rig allowed easy access to the hold for loading and unloading of cargo.  The overall length of the trow was 56 feet.  
The Severn trows carried various cargoes along the river during the late 19th and early 20th century.

 I came across a scale model of the Severn Trow Norah at Maritime Museum in Greenwich and have just completed a stamp collage based on this.  Built in 1868 at Bridgewater, Norah carried bunker coal from coal ports such as Cardiff, Barry and Newport.  This coal was for domestic users, but also for coastal steamers - vessels such as the SS Robin, also featured in one of my collages, rescued from destruction and now in the Royal London dock.  
When her working days ended, Norah was bought by Captain Leonard Smart in 1932 and he beached her at Weston as a houseboat.  After his death in 1936 she was left there with other wooden hulks until the outbreak of war, when she was stripped of all her metalwork, for the war effort, and then burnt.  

Detail

Severn Trow Norah