I hope you enjoy listening to my reading of the opening section of Bethany Rose, from my Artisan-Sorcerer series of short stories and novels. I recorded it using a Fifine microphone, which simply plugs into a port in my desktop computer. This gives a noticeably better sound than the in-built mic, and has proved its worth already. The camera used is the PC's own. I have an Asus all-in-one desktop, and the camera has been placed underneath the screen. It would have been much better if it had been placed at the top of the screen, as this low angle gives an unfortunate view of my chin, even after I've raised the whole thing up considerably by stacking books underneath it. Oh well, that's just one more design flaw to look out for next time I'm buying a PC, whenever that might be.

 Acrylic on canvas; A4 size; currently untitled. I finished this painting yesterday. It forms part of my on-going Birkenhead Park series which I've been working on the for last seven years. This scanned image doesn't quite replicate the exact colour tones of the original, but it's enough to give a very clear idea of how it looks. I've been experimenting with acrylic lately, using them initially almost as if they're watercolours by applying them in thin washes then building up layers of stronger colours. The painting is based on an original sketch done on location in the park.  I'm interested by the pattens created by the natural shapes of trees, and the multiple colours of bark. Children tend to paint bark a solid brown, but if you actually look at it properly brown is scarce. Instead, there tends to be a huge range of silvers, greens, and other colours. The flat edge of the water's far bank is created by the man-made pond's contour. Here, I was looking