This wooden box, with a sliding lid and a movable tray inside it, was handmade by either my uncle John or Frank. This was made when they were young joinery apprentices, as a demonstration of skills gained, presumably some time in the fifties, and before they both emigrated to Australia as "£10 poms". The image glued onto the side shows  men and women in  a gondola, clearly enjoying a romantic cruise. The colours of the box are the original ones, and the paint shows wear and tear. The stuck-on image is not really to my taste but when Mum gave the box to me, when I was a teenager, she asked me to promise not to repaint it and so I haven't. The box is used to store art materials which I rarely use, such as chalk and oil pastels, gouache paints, (the same set I've had since art school some 30 years ago), and a ridiculous quantity of HB pencils, (which I hardly ever draw with as the lead is wrong for sketching). The box sits at the back of my art table, half-buried under s...

   Can a whole year have flown by already since we adopted Rosie and Jim? Well, yes, it has. And what a difference there is now with these two bundles of fun. When they first came to us, both were very thin and cautious. No wonder; they'd had a rough start to life, and then a period of life in kennels surrounded by other anxious dogs.  Rosie especially was quite timid. It has been lovely watching them gain confidence in their new home and in us. Jim settled in more quickly, but still doesn't like sudden loud noises or swift movements near to him. Rosie took longer to trust us, but now she's a complete cuddle-pot and doesn't think twice before clambering onto a lap for a snuggle. She starts off most games. She's currently in love with a ragged bit of cloth which is all that remains of a rainbow-coloured teddy bear. Jim is fond of dismantling toys...! We needed to do  lot of work with their behaviour when outside, as they were very reactive to other dogs, yapping fran...

  Here's my latest video, which shows how I created Winter Trees, an acrylic painting which is part of my Birkenhead Park series. The painting is based on a sketch done on location. Over the last seven years I've built up a pile of sketchbooks crammed with ink and watercolour images of the park. I enjoy sketching outdoors. Usually my dogs are (impatiently) keeping me company. They wait while I draw, gradually tugging more and more on the leads as if to say, "Hurry up will you!" So I'll quickly dash off the latest sketch and then we'll walk a bit further. Often it'll not be much further, as they promptly skid to a halt to sniff the next fallen leaf or twig. "Did you really need to sniff that with such urgency?" They reply with wagging tails and eager sniffing. Apparently not all fallen leaves are equal.

   This video shares my sketches from 2022, all done in Birkenhead Park. So you'll see trees, ponds, ducks, geese, people, dogs... All the expected activities of any urban park.  There are also a few sketches created as part of a group event organised by the Liver Sketching Club which was celebrating its 150th anniversary. They provided some models - a lady in a straw hat, a man in a tux. There was also a lady holding plastic flowers and a balloon, with a plastic crown on her head. Anyway, I hope you enjoy browsing these ink and watercolour sketches. Sketches are not the same as a finished drawing, as I'm sure most people will understand. Sketches are done swiftly; mine are often done in a few minutes, with watercolour added later in the studio. This is for speed, so I can do several sketches at once, and it saves having to carry materials around with me. When one hand has a sketchbook balanced in it, and the other holds both a pen and two dog leads (with tugging, jigglin...

   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 ...

  I hope you enjoy viewing this slideshow of my photographs, which were all taken in Birkenhead Park over the last year.  This forms part of my Birkenhead Park series of sketches, paintings and photos. Don't ask me how long this series will continue on for, as I don't know the answer to that one. It'll last as long as it lasts. It began not long after we moved to this area, and maybe it will continue until we move away again, whenever that might be. We're not planning to move in the near future, anyway, but having experienced the fragility of the "best laid plans of mice and men" I don't rule anything out. The camera used for these photos is an old Kodak Easyshare. Okay, it's not a model which would attract a professional photographer but for my needs it has proven to be more than adequate. Plus it fits in a pocket readily, so it's easy to carry around. The camera is obsolete now, of course. I bought it around 20 years ago, and technology has chang...