New website

Forgot to say, I now have a new website. This is not just a slightly rearranged portfolio, but a complete site with lots of different portfolios, which is far less confusing.

Still needs a few tweaks - like things not lining up properly due to program having no guidelines.
And I will add/adapt the content too.

Tax return

I filed my tax return yesterday.

I was needing to know my profit for the year, and having got that far, it made sense to complete it and send it in. But it feels very odd. I half thought of keeping the actual sending till 31st Jan (final deadline) just for tradition's sake!

22nd June

Aye, the nights are fair drawing in...

From a job ad

Excellent English and grammer skills is essential as copywriting will be an integral part of this job.

Blinds

I now have blinds in my studio.

Sorry for poor quality phone picture!

I was getting the afternoon sun blazing in, turning the room into an oven and reflecting off my screen. Which was not helping my work. The blinds make a huge difference.

The colour makes me think of blue houses in India or Greece, and Cambridge blue lobelias.

Thanks to my dad and his step ladder.

Snowy light

A nice seasonal picture. (As always, this is a colour study, not a good picture)

10am, Feb 5, looking North towards Glasgow

Automaton

Lydia purple

Have just recently been illustrating Lydia.

I've tried to make the purple as accurate as possible, while still being 'purple'. Do you think I've got the balance right? Does this look like purple to you?

Five have a safe, sensible time.

I dreamed I wrote this blog post, so here it is:

Once upon a time, there were three children called Julian, Dick and Anne. One summer, they went to stay with their cousin, George. They played in the garden, with George's dog, Timmy. Sometimes, if Aunt Fanny was there to look after them, they went to the beach. In the distance, there was an island. "Maybe I'll go there one day," said George. 
The end.

I have such profound dreams. 

It was possibly because I've been re-reading Shirley Hughes' autobiography, and she comments that modern publishers tend to make books about real-world children (as opposed to fantasy) very tame, for fear of giving children ideas.

Encouragement

From the newsletter of the author of the book I illustrated:

There has been considerable encouragement recently concerning The Journey of Life (Ulendo wa Moyo). One missionary couple reports that they have had people queuing up in the villages to buy the book! We now know of two Bible schools that have started using the book with their students and a big, private Christian secondary school in Blantyre has made it part of their curriculum for their first years. There have also been some very touching stories, such as the orphanage that could only afford one copy where that single book was read, according to a missionary, by every child until it was almost in pieces! We thank the Lord that we are beginning to see the first fruits of a project that we undertook to bless Malawi with a version of Pilgrim’s Progress that would be meaningful and relevant to its people.

You can buy the book here.
More about making the book here.