I live in Bristol, UK. I make things out of cloth, plywood, paper and other things. Sometimes I make prints.
This is an article by Michael Welton, mainly about a gallery show in Ottowa, Anthropocene. But it also looks at earlier work by Burtynsky, et al. I just came across this trailer for the recently released film, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch.
I’ve been living on the historic (it goes back a few hundred years) Bristol Harbourside for more than a year. Recently it was announced in the ‘papers that this is one of the best places to live in the UK, which would make it pretty good worldwide, in my book, especially in the summer of 2018. I’m still not quite sure I want to live anywhere since my Janet let me go, just a year and a half ago.
Still, as I dodge the bemused tourists, phone zombies – available everywhere – jogger packs, (no, it’s because it’s flat, not because it’s interesting) kamikaze cyclists, bemused + lost tourists; avoiding as far as possible the tedious aquatic activities (frequently ending in fireworks during the summer), I have to admit that living on the old dock does have some charms. 
Food is not generally one of those delights (this is still Britain, after all), although there are some exceptions. I haven’t counted the number of places to eat around the harbour, but in a year I have sampled them all, some several times. The nearest to where I live – Baltic Wharf housing estate – is the Cottage Inn. Between me and them is The Baltic Wharf Caravan Park, (those travellers get everywhere – fill in according to prejudice) which is busy all year round, mainly with camper vans, and is a welcome bulwark. The dingy yard is next door. So The Cottage has easy pickings, (tourists and sailors being known for their thirsty ways) which is more than you can say for the food they serve. Take the ‘Beer Battered Fish (not Cod you will observe) n’ Chips. Fine if you enjoy batter and hate fish, you won’t be disappointed, other than with the ‘mushy peas’ which accompany the said batter and semi-frozen chunky-style chips; although they are actually garden peas served in a rusty enamel mug and stirred up with a fork, a bit.
The mash potato is a revelation, any old pots will do it seems whether they are suitable for mash or not, unadorned with herb, milk or butter, dropped onto the plate with all the care of an old-time boatman casting his slop pail into the aforementioned harbour.
Recently, feeling rather thirsty – it is the nearest by several feet – I stopped in for a libation and was informed by the landlord that I would, have to join the queue, over there, mate. Charm personified.
Moving on rapidly past the Harbour Master’s office one arrives at the ‘historic’ – it’s been there a while – Underfall Yard, a small working doc and associate cafe, which is licensed, possibly it’s best feature. Strange, over-sized sandwiches await the wanderer, which is good for the sea birds and pigeons I suppose. A few overpriced metres further on is the Nova Scotia, overlooking the Cumberland Basin locks, sluices and swing bridge. A working pub with a tourist input, the Nova Scotia boasts a chef who enjoys cooking, and a long-standing rather wonderful folk night, Mondays. Food is quite good, especially the cauliflower cheese and the excellent value sirloin steak. Avoid the veal, unless you have your good teeth in.
Yours for just £9.95, introductory offer while stocks last. This press-out version is supplied with pva glue.
3mm plywood, laser-cut and sanded on both sides, approx 20cm x 10cm. Instructions included. Contains small parts so not suitable for children under 3. Assembly may need adult assistance. Free postage in the UK, £3 for the European Union. 
A visit to a terrific, free and very popular exhibition – closing soon – at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, the first of three looking at woodblock printing in Japan. This one is concerned with landscapes, the next on starts on January 12th and is focused on the city.
There is also an on-line exhibition for those who can’t get to the museum.
The museum also currently has a small but interesting display of African fabric, mainly made-up clothing.
Working on a steampunk design for a helicopter, I have struggled the last few days to get a look that will translate to plywood. The devil really is in the detail. My plywood laser-cut toys are plain and unadorned but steampunk is not about clean lines.
I spent a while this morning drawing this window in the style of an old diving helmet, here as a .png file (WordPress won’t allow vector files, if anyone wants a copy let me know and I will send).
Affinity Designer is perfectly adequate for 2D drawing like this.
Printing documents that are larger than A4 can be a pain. I find Windows to be way behind the mac in this respect, and most of the cheaper apps don’t have printer dialogue boxes that can handle this.
So third party apps would seem to be the way, but are there any? I tried Wrapcandy Poster – it crashed repeatedly; Easy Poster Printer£2.09 from Microsoft Store but it is a weak and feeble thing which does not print to the correct size. Gimp is supposed to be able to handle poster but it is difficult to work through, I couldn’t get a result.
Then, having wasted about 40 sheets of A4, (even printing both sides) I discovered that Acrobat Reader now has poster print ability. Not the best print dialogue box but it worked and produced an 18 sheet print that was the correct size. So two cheers for Adobe, who I have little time for, generally.
Affinity Designer, Photo and Publisher all lack the ability to print posters, which is a glaring omission.
Lots more time with Affinity Designer and Photo, checking and re-checking files and also making visual instruction sheets.
I am writing this using the ‘classic’ WordPress editor, which has a column on the left of the screen showing all the areas I can work in, and a column on the right showing the things I can do before publishing. It all works well and I don’t have to search around for features.
The latest ‘improved’ editor has something called ‘blocks’, whose container must be clicked on to become accessible. There is no longer a left column and the Publish area is reduced and lacking Categories and Tags which were previously visible and are now hidden.
I (and I should think many others) will be using the classic editor for as long as it is available. See WP Tweaks, for example, and the negative comments from experienced users.
I have been using Affinity Designer (AD) to make instruction sheets for my plywood construction toys – a process which often seems more painstaking than designing the things themselves.
These are vector files – raster files become huge and slow – and were originally created in Illustrator using the 3D function. But they original won’t open in AD because it wasn’t saved with an associated .pdf, AD can’t make sense of it.
So I took the 3D raster (.jpeg) and traced it using Inkscape then had a vector file I could edit in AD. Whew.
The lack of a trace function in AD is a serious oversight on the part of Serif Eu.
My files are laser cut, currently by Basically Wooden in east Devon and to be accepted by the cutter software they should be in .dxf – drawing exchange format, the most commonly used in Computer Aided Design (CAD), in AutoCad and AutoDesk. These file types are used for CNC routers, plasma cutting, laser cutting, engraving and waterjet cutting, &c. So for a vector drawing program to be useful it should be able to save in this form, unfortunately Affinity Designer cannot do so. Once again Inkscape comes to the rescue, it can accept vectors from AD and save them in .dxf.
But this comes at a cost: file sizes are changed, checks and adjustments must be made and all this adds time and complexity. So I feel Serif Eu. need to get .dxf format added asap if they want to take on the big players. I’m looking forward to an upgrade.
I have been using Affinity Designer (AD) to correct and amend five files – plywood model boats and helicopter, which means opening the Adobe Illustrator .ai file, working on it then ‘Exporting‘ it in .svg format, AD can only Save in it’s own format, .afdesign. This is a weakness in the AD setup and doesn’t make much sense, to me. Files can be exported – just another way of saving – in a wide range of formats, so why not put that function under the Save drop-down? Also, files cannot be saved as .ai – Adobe Illustrator, which is after all the most common low-end vector app.
Those are minor niggles and don’t affect functionality. The lack of a Trace function is a serious issue and a quick check on the Affinity forums shows no signs of any upgrade in the near future. The AD support forums suggest using Inkscape, which is freeware and works pretty well, but has a rather awkward user interface, and this suggestion merely shows the weakness of AD in this important area.
The ability to Trace the outline of a bitmap – raster – object, and then convert it to a vector is one I frequently used in Illustrator and which was high on the agenda at college, it’s an an essential tool. The whole point of apps like these is to use vectors rather than rasters; accuracy, ease of scaling, small file size are among the advantages. AD has plenty of strengths, the user interface is second to none and the assistant, which runs quietly in the background is excellent. I hope Trace gets added soon.
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