Recovers Completed

It has been a bit of a whirlwind of a week. I have even completed the 9 new book covers for my novels. All are now available from Amazon with their new colourful designs. My last novel, Familar will be realeased in early 2025.

 

Crawley New Cover

 I am really going to town on the redesigns of my back catalogue of Novels. Here is the new cover for my first book, Crawley:

Solstice New Cover

Next up in my novel book cover revamps is my 2022 book, Solstice.

Lore - New Cover

The new cover of my 2018 novel, Lore. More new book covers coming soon as I tidy up my backlog...

Familiar - Draft 1 Completed

It has been a busy and very productive month. I'm really enjoying my day jobs - probably the first time I have ever enjoyed my paid employment. I've applied to help out at the local cat sanctuary. The 1st draft of my next book is complete. I have even got the cover for it sorted after my Canva course at Gower College last week! The year is definitely ending way better than it began. And, best of all, my daughter is coming home for a few days next month, so I have something very special to look forward to... 🙂

Cold Comfort & One Night Buried Book Covers

 I was due back at work today but instead phoned the office to take the rest of the week off. I have had a pretty productive few days editing and decided I was in no mood for working for the man whilst enjoying this rush of creativity.

Making the most of this unexpected extra time off, I managed to sort out the covers of the novels I am currently working on and which should be published later in the year. I am more than happy with the pair of them and am classing March 16th, 2023, as a day well spent. :)

Guy Fawke's Night

 November 5, 2022

I spent this bonfire night comforting the furry girls and progressing my new Vampire novel...

x2 Cover Art

 With the publication dates of both Solstice and Avalon getting close, I thought it was time that I designed some book covers. And here they are - the front cover of Solstice and the full jacket layout for Avalon. I hope you like them :)

Shed Doors

I love the colour of my shed door, so much so that I got round the thinking, if one door look so good, imagine having two doors on the garden building...

Shed door details

Getting to work...

Our new faerie door in situ

Enchanting, eh?

Me and The Soosh Gardening

January 02, 2022

Linocut Ideas #1

I am getting a linocut kit for Christmas. To prepare, I started designing some images for my first print...

A stroll around Norwich

Sunday, September 26, 2021

My daughter showed us around one of her favourite walks in Norwich City this afternoon. The sun was out. The weather was cool but enjoyable. I haven't felt so good in a long while.

Norwich Cathedral

Canoes, Norwich City

Cow Tower, C14th Artillery Blockhouse

Spontaneous City architectural installation

Edward Street, Norwich

Anglia Square, Norwich

Graffiti, Norwich

Heads 'n' Toes

After our walk, and before heading back to our holiday home for the evening we parked up briefly outside the abandoned old mental health hospital at Thorpe St Andrew.

You can take a gander around the inside of this Grade II listed building courtesy of Em and Stew Em and Stu.

Gower Ghosts

Writing for my guidebook on Gower ghost stories has now been completed. As has the book cover design :)

Illustrations

 Creating some illustrations for the book of old Gower ghost stories I am working on.

The Angel Of The North

Following on from my post the other day on Antony Gormley's 'Another Place', here are some of the images I captured of  Gormley's most famous work, 'The Angel of the North':

The immense 'Angel of the North'

The 'Angel of the North' is an immense sculpture, made of steel, that is located in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear. Erected on the site on 15 February 1998, is stands 20 metres tall, with a wingspan measuring 54 metres! Its wings are positioned forward from the body at an angle of 3.5 degrees to give the impression of an embrace. However, this welcoming stance, plus its position overlooking the A1 and A167 roads, led locals to nickname the statue 'The Gateshead Flasher"!

Locals have cheekily nick-named the statue 'The Gateshead Flasher'

Gormley has stated that the siting of the work is of particular importance. The statue stands atop the former Pithead Baths Colliery where men toiled beneath the surface of the earth in total darkness. The 'Angel' having risen from the mines, now stands proudly in the daylight in an act of celebration of the industry, its wings unfurled like a newly hatched butterfly, gaining strength from the sunlight and ready to embrace the future. The mound of earth beneath the 'Angel'' feet also appears like an ancient megalithic burial mound, giving a timeless and spiritual aspect to the piece.

The statue was funded by Gatehead Council, along with the Arts Council of England, the European Regional Development Fund and private sponsorship. Its size and exposed location means the sculpture has to withstand wind speeds of over 100 mph. To accommodate this, the piece is secured in 600 tonnes of concrete and is anchored to a depth of 21 metres beneath the ground. It was constructed, using COR-TEN steel, in three pieces at Hartlepool Steel Fabrications Ltd.

The magnificent 'Angel of the North'

Like much of Gormley's work, the 'Angel of the North' generated a lot of controversy when plans for the piece were first advertised. Give its high visibility along the adjacent roads, the potential for its presence causing traffic accidents were amongst the chief reasons for complaint. To try and alleviate those concerns, trees have now been grown to mask the statue from sight where the main road reaches its closest position to the 'Angel'.

As is usual with Gormley's public art, controversy soon abated after the unveiling of the piece, and the 'Angel of the North' is now recognised as the UK's most famous sculpture. It currently draw around 150,000 visitors to the area each year. It really is an impressive and uplifting work of public art, the sheer scale of which is not given full justice by my photographs.

Antony Gormley's 'Another Place'

A short while ago I got the opportunity to visit Liverpool and made Crosby Beach on Merseryside my first stop there. 

It was a long day's drive and the sun was dipping fast in the sky by the time I arrived at the beach.  But I had a good hour or so to spare and I managed to explore a fair few of the 100-strong iron men that make up Sir Antony Gormley's 'Another Place' exhibit, which is located along this stretch of sand. 

The first of Sir Antony Gormley's iron
men that greeted my visit to Crosby Beach

The statues are modelled from 17 different body casts the sculptor made of his own naked body and the resulting figures evidence a variety of both tense and relaxed poses.

The nude iron sculptures raised a lot of controversy at the time of their installation and several groups, including watersport enthusiasts, the coastguard and conversationalists raised concerns against their presence along the shoreline.

Birds scouring the sands for their supper
near one of the iron men of Crosby Beach

Having previously toured a few other countries, Germany (Cuxhaven), Norway (Stavenger) and Belgium (De Panne), the iron men reached Merseyside in 2005. They were then due to move to New York after the local council initially refused permission for 'Another Place' to become a permanent exhibition at the beach.

However, the iron men became a very popular tourist draw over the years and brought a lot of money and trade to the community businesses. This forced the hand of the councillor's when the question of the residency of  'Another Place' returned to the council the following year. And so, to the delight of art lovers and the local trade, the iron men became a permanent feature on the sands of Crosby Beach in 2007.

One of the scarier faces of the
Crosby Beach Iron Men

Gormley's stated intention when he created 'Another Place', was to explore the movement of the tides and the passing of time on the beach and to engage with the day to day life of the habitat there.

An iron man watching the passing of one of the many...

...large container ships that slide along the horizon of Crosby Beach

With the evening drawing in fast, I was a little disappointed not to have the time to explore more of the Crosby iron men as each seemed to have its own distinct character.

But time and tides wait for no man and so I finally had to say a fond farewell to these unique and thought-provoking statues. I really could not leave, however, without having my photograph taken with one of the surreal fellows :)

That's me on the left btw