Here's a short video slideshow made from some of the rapid sketches I'd done during 2016.  The location is Birkenhead Park, and all but one of the sketches were done with an ordinary fine-line ink pen.  I used a small pad which could easily be tucked inside a jacket pocket for convenience.  When I describe the sketches as rapid, I mean it.  Many of them were completed within a few seconds.  I hope you all enjoy the video.  You can find my other videos by using the menu above, or at my YouTube site. As I type this, rain is pattering loudly against the window beside me.  It's a sound I've always enjoyed; I find it strangely comforting and restful.  Rain has its own musicality. The rain will also help to water-in the loganberry and thornless blackcurrant canes I planted in large tubs yesterday.  I also potted up two wall baskets with three tiny strawberry plants in each.  As they grow, these will happily dangle down and provide a splash of greenery on a garden wall

To celebrate the annual Read an Ebook Week , for one week only all four novels my Artisan-Sorcerer Series will be on offer at 75% off their usual price.  Make the most of this massive discount while you can. Also on offer will be my other ebooks, at between 50% and 75% discount for one week only. Click this link to get your copies! Remember to use the discount coupon on each individual book page.

. Presenting 'Art Gallery #3', which features my oil and watercolour paintings from 2016, plus a couple of drawings.  Not exactly a prolific output but in my defence it had been a busy time, what with finishing my fourth novel, Fabian , and completing my second NVQ Level 3 course.  This video doesn't include my sketches done in Birkenhead Park - they'll keep for a separate video which will appear eventually. I hope you enjoy looking at the video.  If you like any of the paintings, you can purchase them via my online store, Spooky Cute Design s.  They come as quality prints, (framed or unframed), on t-shirts for men and women, greetings cards and a wide variety of items.  Payment is secure with PayPal, and international shipping is available.  Browse the store for further details. Anyway, guess whose birthday it was in February 17th!  Richard gave me two wonderful art books:  Artists Painting Techniques, edited by Bob Bridle and others; and Van Gogh:  The Complet

Character sketch of Teil Snowdrops are about to come into bloom in my garden.  I love snowdrops; they're such simple little flowers but so delicate and pretty. Other spring bulbs are pushing through, too, and this week the 2016/17 catalogue for David Austin roses dropped through the door.  Our garden has an old rose which is under threat of removal; it's got one more season to buck up or it's out of here.  Last year it didn't flower even once.  In a small garden like ours, there's no room for plants that don't perform. When we moved house, I had to leave behind a few favourite roses, including my beloved Rosa Mundi, (which is listed on page 50 of the catalogue), which I'd like to replace. A week ago I was admiring a bouquet which included several royal blue roses.  They looked wonderful!  Unfortunately a Google search quickly revealed that these had been dyed, and the nearest to 'blue' roses are really only lilac shades.  That was a bit dis

Since 2012, I've created a list of annual goals which I aim to achieve within the following twelve months.  This is one way to keep track of the progress of various projects and it's a bit of self-entertainment.     Mallard; oil on canvas; Adele Cosgrove-Bray; Dec 2016.   M y goals for 2016 were:- Publish Fabian ; Finish the NVQ Level 3 course; Write more poems and short stories; Create more art and photography.  My fourth Artisan-Sorcerer novel, Fabian , was published by Middle Eye Press in paperback and ebook formats back in September.  Readers learned more about everyday life within the Artisan-Sorcerer household, but were also given  much more insight into the magical, spiritual side of their lives.  Fabian himself faces life-altering and life-threatening situations. You readers could really help me by posting reviews of my work on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or other online stores, or on your own blog.  The amount of promotion a site like Amazo

Rapid sketch of moorhens; 2016. I'm enjoying a spot of annual leave this week, which began with a lively and well-attended writers' event at Bebington Library on Saturday the 19th.  This featured members of Wirral Writers , Bebington Bards , the 3Ls Creative Writing Group and Riverside Writers .  I'm no longer a member of Riverside Writers due to constraints of time, but I had been invited to join in anyway. Due to there being so many writers and poets wishing to read, a strict time limit was imposed and so the audience only heard half of my 1,600 word story, Fame, which is about an obscure, ageing rock singer who has turned up on Facebook.  It's a story about reminiscing and unachieved ambitions which still tempt. My sister Evelyn came to the library event, and afterwards she and I travelled to my home with my friends Tim and Nigel, where we all socialised for a couple of hours and caught up on news. I've been generally tidying up the house.  It is now

Boathouse, Birkenhead Park. Saturday, 19th November will find me at Bebington Library, Wirral, when along with other writers I'll be reading one of my short stories.  The event starts at 2pm, so if you're in the area do come along. It's absolutely ages since I took part in a similar event, and I've yet to decide which story I'll be reading.  I've so many to choose from! I had my hair trimmed on Saturday, then decided to go for a walk round Birkenhead while I was there, reasoning that I'd be able to have a look for some new jumpers for the coming winter without hubby helping - which translates as him enthusing over monstrosities which only a neolithic troll might perceive as stylish. Great idea!  So I walked into the very first shop I came to, and who was the first person I saw?  Yes, Richard.  He was at the counter, buying the latest in Joseph Delaney's Spooks series. We both really enjoyed the Spook's Apprentice series, but didn't tak

Here are a few short quotes from Fabian to tempt your appetite... Grief is a weird thing; it hides beneath the surface and rises like a shark from the depths of your soul when you least expect it. *** If a person worships money as their god and devotes all or most of their time and energy to its accumulation, feeding the spiritual with only fragments of their energies, then the spiritual will starve. Wealth in itself presents no obstacle to the spiritual. On the contrary, financial independence can bring freedoms which would otherwise remain beyond reach. And mastery of the material world is an often-overlooked facet of mastery of the self. There is no place in our Order for those who pretend to be an Adept when they can't even pay their own bills. *** For all those years, she had ached for the future. So much time had been spent imagining how life would be, how events would unfold, how perfect everything would turn out in the end if only she kept hop

Cadi; chinagraph & watercolour pencils. I passed my maths exam!  Thank goodness for that, as this means the final section of my NVQ Level 3 course is now complete, and all I have to do now is wait for my certificates to arrive. I'm glad to see the end of it, as the course took up far more time than was described at the outset - the better part of two years, in fact - and involved a disproportionate amount of writing for a course which was supposed to be largely vocational. Anyway, thanks go to Knowsley Community College tutors Helen Lea-Smith and Paul Byatt, who guided me through the course. That's enough courses, thank you.  I've done one job-related course after another for the last five years, including a previous NVQ Level 3.  Enough is enough. Rapid ink sketch of Canada geese. If you're in Birkenhead Park and see a woman trying to sketch whilst holding onto two Jack Russells who're itching to walk further on, that'll probably be me.  I&#