My Little Explorer (by sarah)

Mary loves getting herself ready for outings.

She knows we take supplies, like blankets and picnics and of course a walking stick!

Protected: Sleep Over Time! (by sarah)

Learning Experience (by sarah)

So yesterday I did the village craft fayre all profits were for charity and yet it was the worst one I have ever done. It was slow - all of them are being slow at the moment but something else was going on, people were still buying the odd bit from the other stalls. Now I had Little Books of Poetry and art prints for sale rather than my normal stuff (which I'd given up as it wasn't selling) but it was not that change that was the issue, others were selling prints.

I watched the girl across from me sell pretty much all of her hare prints. They were lovely and she was lovely but I find that sort of thing boring especially since moving here to the Cotswolds as there are hare pictures EVERYWHERE. But people bought those. (And I bought some of her buttons as I loved the style she had done on them but the ones I liked were the ones that were left on her stall at the end).

People bought chutneys that I would never buy as I make my own and they bought ceramics and they bought fluffy hedgehogs from the hedgehog hospital stall but I sold one little book and that was to somebody who already had one. My science-art prints were looked on in horror by some with comments about them being creepy or scary. And then when asked what the actual pictures were done in I got sneers over 'fine liner' and as for my felt tip pictures such as Creativity and The Little Book illustrations... people kept asking if they were Jean's work.

And yes I have imitated children's drawings for the The Little Books but not drawn them childishly. The cat in the christmas tree was harder to draw than my space montage. I didn't think I really cared about what people thought of my art anymore but having it thought of as something a child could do upset me - this is in contrast with the reaction I had at the Tate Modern to a book that entitled Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That. My objection to it was that it felt children could not think the deep thoughts behind the art and yet I know Jean can and she had already won prizes for art works by the time she was five - the issue is that she does not yet have the dexterity and refinement for the finished piece but the ideas, the concepts are there.

To be fair it was said by people who know Jean but still...

I would feel completely crushed except two things came out of this a) I came to the conclusion that I am not mainstream, I can do fine art I choose not to I have my own style and yes it is not most peoples thing, b) Kids picked up the Little Book and read them avidly - the target audience loves them but unfortunately they do not have the ability to buy things themselves it is the parents who need to do that. So now the problem is how to get them to buy rather than the style of the book being wrong. I also ended up letting kids colour in my trilobite prints that went wrong at the printers - these are just line art and it was a keep my kids occupied thing but Jean's friends kept coming and joining and in the end I ran out of them! This has given me the want to produce a colouring book.

I also met some amazing artists, only one of which had a website but I think they live next do to each other.

I loved her camera man!

The other issue is that I need to make sure that people know the business cards are for taken as I had a number of people try to buy them! Go Moo.com.

Anniversaries :) (by sarah)

This weekend saw my brother and sister-in-laws 1st wedding anniversary (well not actually it was like the weekend before or something but close enough) I made cake and things - photos of that will be on here as soon as I can get Al to upload them off his phone!

It was also my mum and dad 34th anniversary on the Sunday so we had some lovely outings And I'm looking forward to doing a large 35 cake for next year

We went to the Cathedral and the Beatrix Potter place and cream teas were involved.

A Quick Snippet of a Sarah Day (by sarah)

Today walked to Gloucester - had an altercation about buying books at a church bizar, got harrassed by a real life Salad Fingers until his career interviened, met up with Al and had lunch, had a grumpy teething baby, managed to walk home though last stretch had the pelvis clicking and crunching! Jeany decided to help me by cleaning the kitchen using washing up liquid and my exfoliating scrubber - she washed walls and floors, we made sushi and diary free chocolate for Mary. Still no laptop