I started this website in 2013 with a post about the OHTO Graphic Liner. I’d discovered the pen via the Pen Addict and I was so very excited about how fantastic it was that I had to tell the world. (I still use them now.) Over time I reviewed hundreds of pens, notebooks and pencils and I think a lot of you who still visit are here because of that.
Following a health-enforced and much needed change of career, I found myself much happier but also much poorer, a good trade-off but one that made it difficult to keep up with the reviewing side of things. I never liked trying to get review samples for free (although I did it) and I no longer had the money to buy pens. I also had less desire to keep getting more stuff. So as you’ll have noticed the pen-reviewing petered out and stopped. Meanwhile, I was finding myself with more time for drawing, something I had neglected since leaving university over thirty years ago.
I now run a guest house with my wife Julia and I draw as much as I can. It’s mostly guest house in the summer and art in the winter, of course. I live by the sea in Dorset and it’s just ridiculously beautiful here. You’ll see I mostly draw what I find beautiful, which is why I have so many pictures of my wife, the sea and the Dorset countryside. Drawing is a compulsion, if I go more than a couple of days without drawing or sketching I get quite twitchy. I’m lucky to now have time for it and to be able to share the love through some teaching, support groups, exhibitions and Instagram.
If you’ve stuck around since the pen days, thank you so much! If you’re new here, welcome! Please consider following me on Instagram or signing up for my very occasional newsletter. (It’s even less frequent than blog posts, these days, if you can believe it.)
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