Poppi and Emily enjoying an indoor sunbathe. Eagle-eyed visitors to this website will have already noticed the change of title art, which uses my latest oil painting, Liverpool Waterfront .  That's the thing with websites or bloggy places - it's fun to change their look now and again, tweaking this, twiddling with that, casting off something which has perhaps grown a little dusty in favour of something sparkly new. I have been considering starting a Patreon site.  In case you've not heard of Patreon before, its a way of sharing exclusive or advance work with a group of subscribing patrons, who agree to support the creator's work from as little as $1 per month.  The aim is to build a growing number of patrons in order to allow the creator to become self-supporting and thus be free to create more stuff.  I already attract revenue from my books, from merchandise at Spooky Cute Designs and through my articles on Hubpages but with this Patreon page I'd be posting ...

David; oil on canvas; March 2017. Here's my latest oil painting, scanned directly from the canvas which didn't quite fit on the screen.  The actual painting is about half an inch bigger all round, and the scanner made it look more grainy than it really is, but you can still get a good idea of how it looks. I bought an over-the-shoulder canvas satchel with all kinds of practical pockets designed into it, which seems just the thing for carrying a couple of sketch pads, pens, brushes and a watercolour set around.  Until now I've been limited to what will fit in a jacket pocket.  So I'd been itching to give this satchel its debut run at the weekend, and of course the rain hasn't ceased to pour in torrents. I have been writing, of course, doing a bit more to the fifth novel in the Artisan-Sorcerer Series which will be called Morgan.   Isn't it funny when characters misbehave?  Rowan seems to have independently decided he's to have a more prominent role th...