• Tomorrow I paint! I’ve spent the last three years glued to my computer screen producing digital artwork, but tomorrow I start painting a new book. It’s not very long – it’s a first phonics story that I wrote earlier this year.

    But… I’ve hardly touched my paintbox in three years! How will I do? I’m prepared to do several versions to get my eye back in, but I’d rather get it right first time.

    Working on the screen makes your mind work in a different way. I’m hoping the experience will positively affect my real paint work. I’m excited. I’m so bored working on the computer. It will be lovely to feel real paint and paper again.

  • I feel like I’m tempting providence, but it seems my site has been sorted out. The hackers had managed to get a secret account on my site, so what ever I did to stop them was useless, they had their own password that let them do what they wanted. My ISP has cleaned that out and I’m resolved not to use free scripts on my site anymore.

  • p_718_538_A16B8A27-609B-4A07-AB8F-622A63D4AA13.jpeg

    Some of my readers will know about my book, Alpabetty, Alpha Betty (Starters) about a girl who wants to be a signwriter. I wrote this because I was a signwriter myself, a long, long time ago.

    I recently came across our local signwriter, Lee, working on the Angel pub in Coleford. He says there’s not enough full-time work for traditional signwriters. Everyone has computer made signs now. The plot of Alpha Betty has come true. All except for the happy ending. Lee says he dreams of painting boats on a sandy Greek shore!

    So nice to see a real craftsman at work.