The Art of Living: Bath Festival of Children's Literature

 

A wonderful festival of literature is coming to one of our favourite cities at the end of September.
Bath is host to an impressive line-up of authors, illustrators and storytellers.  This is the 5th Children's Literature Festival with plenty of events for under 3's to teens.

My son is at the age where he's ready to be absorbed by a storytelling event and I'm so excited to be taking him to a few of our favourites including Elmer:


David McKee
Saturday 24 Sep, 10am - 10.45am
Join master storyteller, stunning artist and creator of this year’s festival front cover David McKee for an incredible live drawing celebration, including our favourite elephant Elmer. A special event for all of you who love King Rollo, Mr Benn and Not Now Bernard too!

Other highlights:

Make your own Picture Book
Sunday 25 Sep, 3.30pm - 4.30pm
Scissors and glue at the ready! Join Petr Horáček, author of The Fly and the Suzy Goose books, find out how to write and illustrate your very own picture book to take home to read. How great is that!

Roddy Doyle
Friday 23 Sep, 7pm - 8pm
Roddy Doyle is talking about his brilliant new book A Greyhound of a Girl, a wittily told tale of four generations taking a midnight road trip back to the past with a very special mission…
Unfortunately I haven't got a 10+ to take to this event, but maybe they will just let me in without a child.  I'd just love to hear Roddy Doyle's voice!

It's wonderful to witness your children discovering books and becoming readers.  I was quite a 'bookworm' when I was younger and didn't mind being teased about it.  I'm still always surrounded by books and I can always gauge how balanced my life is by how much reading I've been able to do. I just hope my son feels the same joy of books as he grows up.

Visit the website here bathkidslitfest.org.uk
Or download the brochure here

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This is part of the Art of Living series of posts that bring you all the things we are passionate about and the things we discover in our lives as mamas.

In our Wednesday Woo blog post series we present a selection of things from the Sisters Guild Boutique.

We also have a Monday Makery with ideas for things to make yourself.

And for a glimpse behind the scenes of Sisters Guild we have the A-Z of Sisters Guild here 

www.sistersguild.co.uk

The Art of Living: 3cs Potrait Project

I've been spending some time in my favourite part of the country recently, the west! I found out about this portrait project in Bath and want to share it with you. The 3CS project is an experiment by digital artist Tom Bagshaw who is attempting to produce 100 digital portrait studies in 100 hours, over 100 days.

The title 3CS is literally CCC, the roman numeral for 300 or 100, 100, 100.

On the 1st of September 2011, artist Tom Bagshaw will begin a unique project to create a portrait study in one hour, one every day, for one hundred days!

In order to accomplish this task he needs your help. He is asking for 100 willing participants to turn up at the Fine Art Print Company in Bath, UK at 12 noon on the 1st of September!

If you would like to in with a chance of having your portrait digitally painted, for free- the first 100 to arrive at FAPC will be asked to give their contact details and sign their understanding of the project then be invited to sit for a couple of quick photographic reference shots. They will then receive a ticket with a unique number relating to their position within the 100. When all the reference is collected and sorted the painting can begin!

The 3cs blog will serve as a place to see how things are going, with a collection of finished pieces being displayed together every 20 days or so.

Even if you do not live in the South West of England or even in the UK, you can still help by promoting the project on your website with a simple link to Toms blog and use of the twitter hashtag #3CS, the more people become aware of the project the more likely Tom will get the required 100 turn up for the photoshoot!

A little about the artist...
Tom Bagshaw is a commercial Illustrator and Digital Painter based near the Georgian City of Bath in the South West of England. He works under the moniker of Mostlywanted and is represented by the Central Illustration Agency. His talents are sought after by clients in fashion, advertising, editorial and publishing, and include The Daily Telegraph, Saatchi & Saatchi, Sony, the BBC, Kraft and GQ. He has recently started to exhibit his more painterly work and currently has a new body of work on show with the Corey Helford Gallery in LA. To view his work, please visit Mostlywanted.com and if you are interested in more of his creative process have a look at his blog: tombagshaw.blogspot.com

It's going to be exciting to see the portrait project evolve, especially to see people I know among the faces.

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This is part of the Art of Living series of posts that bring you all the things we are passionate about and the things we discover in our lives as mamas.

In our Wednesday Woo blog post series we present a selection of things from the Sisters Guild Boutique.

We also have a Monday Makery with ideas for things to make yourself.

And for a glimpse behind the scenes of Sisters Guild we have the A-Z of Sisters Guild here 

www.sistersguild.co.uk

Monday Makery - Rustic Pesto

This Monday Makery is a foodie one, a recipe for pesto in a rough and rustic style.
The recipe is inspired by our Uncle Rupert who transformed the White Hart Inn at Widcombe in Bath into a fantastic restaurant and hostel.  The food at the Inn is delicious and for our Great Aunt's 80th we were all treated to the delights of the menu.  My husband came away with the inspiration to make 'Rustic Pesto' - a pesto that is roughly chopped rather than blended.  It has since become a family favourite.

Ingredients:

• Bunch of fresh basil
• 3 garlic cloves (or more or less to taste - we like it very garlicky!)
• 60g Parmesaan Cheese  - grated (amount can vary depending on how cheesy you like it)
• Pine Nuts - a large handful
• Almonds (optional)- a large handful
• Olive Oil - enough glugs to make it a loose mixture
• Salt & pepper

Method:

1. Toast the nuts in a dry heavy-based pan.
2. On a chopping board or ideally in a mezzaluna roughly chop the nuts and add to a large bowl. (We sometimes add almonds along with pine nuts just to vary the taste)
3. Rougly chop the basil and add to the bowl.
4. Use a garlic press for the garlic and add to the bowl.
5. Grate the Parmesaan and add to the bowl.
6. Stir all the ingredients together in the bowl along with plenty of olive oil.
7. Add salt and pepper to taste.

The pesto can be served simply with crusty bread to dip in a tapas style or it can be added to pasta.
If you do want to make a toddler-version you could alter the garlic amount and blend to a smooth paste.
It really is delicious and very versatile.
We've added it to home-made Pizza and it is also great with Roast Chicken & Roast Vegetables.
It can keep in the fridge for up to 3 days.....but it never lasts that long as it's always scoffed very quickly!

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We have more Monday Makery craft & recipe ideas here.
For behind the scenes photos of Sisters Guild we have the gallery of the A-Z of Sisters Guild here.

Clothkits nostalgia

We rejoiced when we discovered a couple of years ago that Clothkits had been revived, got very excited to discover vintage kits and new kits by some of our favourite designers, and then rejoiced again when we were able to stock them in Sisters Guild.

And... yipeee the stock has arrived!

See the Sisters Guild boutique for more details

Clothkits was such a memorable part of our childhood.  Clothkits just off Union St in Bath was the place to shop for creative mums, and we have to admit now that our mum was pretty cool in her day (even though there was a phase when we refused to stand next to her at the school bus-stop due to her bright pink lace up boots - oh, how I wish she still had them!). I loved going to that shop, surrounded by fabrics , patterns and prints - a visual treat for my childs' eyes.  I'm going to have to do a whole new blog post about memories of Bath as a kid - Moles cafe, Harvest with it's big red play pen, Walcot Street festival - makes me want to move back there. That's Clothkits nostalgia for you!

The Clothkits clothes our mum created during late night sewing sessions on the old Singer machine were just beautiful, the most memorable being the corduroy dresses,  one red, one purple, with hand printed nature patterns.  All 3 of us sisters wore them in turn (yes, there's 3 of us sisters - our lovely Zoe, the oldest sis will surely be getting involved at some stage!)  Our little brother had lots of stripey bright Clothkits jumpers too - from the readymade collection.  A few dresses remain, and Carla's girls are next in line to wear them.

We feel Kay Mawer has brought Clothkits into the 21st Century so perfectly and taken it to a stunning new level by involving artists and designers such as Rob Ryan, Mini Moderns, Jane Foster and People will always need plates.  Now the new generation of mums who love to make stuff can get some creative satisfaction from making a Clothkits piece, and there'll be a whole new trunk of treasured things to hand down and share.

To discover the Clothkits collection pop along to the Sisters Guild boutique here

We are digging around for some old photos and will post them here as soon as we've dusted them off.

Here, I found some!

Please leave your own Clothkits memories here.