Further study of sheep for a piece I am working on.

I shared the ram head study the other day and I am working from a few sketches of sheep I have made in the fields round here. I am playing with an idea of a fun repeat that will look good on things, such as housewares and clothing etc.

I also spent some time reading a few blogs here on steemit today as well.

A good rainy day activity. When reading @godflesh post: Some thoughts about the development in adulthood, which I have rather been enjoying, I got thinking about my own odd childhood.

It is funny how much childhood development does to a person. I often feel more akin to my Victorian ancestors because in an odd way I was rather raised like them. Having only 'gone out' to school for a short time, most of my early to pre-university education was at home with a tutor. And my daily interaction with people was often more of those generations above me than many of my own. This subsequently left me sort of 'out of time' if you were.

I think today we corrall everyone together into little groups and like is with like. We go on and on about 'fairness' and 'equality' and 'celebrating differences' yet we do the very opposite in lumping children into groups of age and then they, poor dears, themselves lump into little cliques of 'goth' or 'nerd'.

All of that makes marketing to groups that much easier as well.

Social media is a great 'clumper'. It wrangles 'like with like' and allows people to incessantly shout their opinions to the quiet 1's and 0's without any concept of debate or ever even being open to a differing opinion.

It seems a shame for early man to have gone to all the trouble to invent language and discourse only to have it end in opinon only.

The Greeks and other ancient races took the time to create debate only to have it all chucked in the bin by the rabble of faceless words typed out to the aether. Opinions, I might add, that were simply put there by the very social media itself.

Oh yes, they are very clever, these formulated opinions we are meant to take on: If you like puppies then you MUST like this political party, I mean what are you? A Puppy murderer?

This sort of easy to create yin and yang of 'logic' is easily created and then taken up by the masses...but I digress.

Back to my own odd childhood.

In many ways, generations ago, even when you did go 'out' to school, you lived in more mixed age family groups. Unmarried aunties (in many way a 'feminist group I think never gets a good looking at') grandparents, odd poor cousins all lived in one household. Childcare, then, was a shared responsibility and a young person had ages from their peers to the very old. And differing opinions to form their little minds, as varying generations ideals and even peoples world views to give a wonderful mix of opinions and views. An unmarried aunt 'at home' and an ancient grandmother who has had children and grandchildren both have varying views and each of these would be present for the child to dissect.

I think were I to have had children, I would have attempted to school them at home.

I truly found the freedom of home study coupled with the need for self discipline to make sure I finished things before my tutor next came, has helped me immensely in the job of artist.

I was always encouraged to question things and to try and find the answer in the from of school work.

When I wondered about genetics I was allowed to make my own incubator, write a paper on it and also make Punnet squares to show the possible outcome of chicken colour and feather characteristics.

It was this sort of question and self-discovery coupled with then teaching from that excitement that has made me also a bit of an introvert as well. As I am oft likely to shut myself away and amuse myself; possibly not always a good thing.

Well, this was an odd sort of tangent I have gone off on today, but I need to get back to work, so I think I will post this now. Do forgive this odd collection of ramblings, I suppose I am simply acting in the very way I was just condemning, perhaps I am OF my time afterall.