We are re-opening!

So pleased to say that 44AD will re-open on Thursday 1st April.

It's been a while since I've engaged with any painting, apart from what colour to do our stairs at home. I'd like to say I'm exploding with ideas, but I won't know if that's true until I get started! But I do feel a change of style and themes waiting to reveal themselves just below my horizon.

I haven't been idle. There's been quite a lot of writing to do: some of it for the schools publisher, Headstart Primary. You'll find some of my books on reading and creative writing at www.headtstartprimary.com. Also, I've finished an adult crime novel (along with thousands of other people during lockdown - just in my street!). And now I'm halfway through a novel for young adults.

I've said too much already.

Stories Telling Stories

This is the title of my friend Hans's recent book, which he asked me to illustrate.

It tells the story of the arrival of a stranger whose telling of a story has the

effect of uniting the villagers in a belief in the power of stories. Through the

telling of their own stories, they see themselves and their relationships.

But also they are inspired to envisage a different way ahead.

Please get in touch if you are interested in finding out more.

Click on Stories to take you to the illustrations.

Music During Lockdown

Lockdown and the closure of schools, which has affected my writing for primary children, has given me with the time to record some of the songs I've been writing for a while. For a while? I mean forever! Having bought Logic Pro last year, I now have, after decades of being unable to give my songwriting any form, the opportunity to present some of. my music and lyrics. This was a forlorn hope many years ago when I had my first job (after being encouraged to leave school by my headmaster at the time) and had enough money to buy, in those days, a Grundig tape recorder. The shop assistant persuaded me that the fact that it had two tacks meant that I could record a second track while listening to the first. What a lie!

You'll find the music here:

https://www.jimedmiston.com/music