WELCOME TO MY BLOG - From the Art Room

It all begins with an idea., that’s what the squarespace website builder has as it standard example text and I hate to say it but they're not wrong, this really was just an idea and a tiny thought of ok I’ll give it a go after being told I should do something with my art.

If you have checked out my “about” page then I’m sorry, as I’m about to introduced myself all over again but its a little different so read on…., if you haven’t seen my page maybe pop over to it and see more of how all this came to be.

Hello, my name is Dawn Edge, A self-taught 30 something artist from the lovely little rose of the shires that is Northamptonshire.

I am the person behind THE RUNNING PHEASANT ART. (Seriously check out the about page of my website to see where that name came from).

At school I took GCSE and A-level Art and never really lost my love for a good doodle or sketch. Even though my godfather, before he passed, told me I had to do something with my art, I didn’t. I chose the eminently sensible route, studying the sciences but never stopped appreciating art and at work, if a plan or sketch was needed for something, I was the one with pencil in hand, ready to draw it.

In 2016 whilst planning my own wedding and then later helping my sister & brother in laws prep their weddings, I found myself picking up my art again properly to do somethings that instead of farming them out, I thought “Hey I could just draw that myself”. So I rustled up some wedding art including - Table Name Art,

- Order of Service Art and

- Fingerprint poster to name a few things.

From here I started wondering “mm.. should I really start a little hobby business”, as I was getting to that age where everyone you seem to know is either getting married, having a baby or hitting a special birthday. I was getting pretty busy with projects for friends and family, but I didn’t really have time to work on it properly til my hubby gave me a nudge. .

Well obviously, I did eventually get it off the ground using social media on instagram and facebook at first but it wasn’t until I went on maternity leave that I really had the time to put my plans in action, whilst working on my ongoing animal alphabet series and trying to, as the social influencers say “build my brand”.

When I went on maternity leave in 2020, little did I know I wasn’t getting 6 weeks off before the baby came. No, I only got 2 weeks. I wasn’t going to be able to create a stock pile a load of new art or design letters before being a busy new mum.

I had wanted to have loads of options of my animal alphabet as we didn’t know what we were having and were not 100% on names for either sex at that point.

I also wasn’t expecting a major global pandemic. The news announcing lockdown came whilst I was in Labor! (I really think my mum could have strangled BoJo at that point as she was to be shut away from us and more importantly from her first grandchild, well so was my dad and my mother in law but they were not my mum.. and zoom cuddles were definitely not enough!)).

We ended up having glorious little smiley baby girl called Elizabeth (Lizzie). I was very fortunate, Charles and I must have bribed the right person when they handed out baby temperaments, as she was a very happy, chilled baby, who slept! WHOOP WHOOP (if your a new mum reading this,, I’m so sorry please don’t kill me, if you haven’t showered in 3 days or slept in 5. I also had a few of these moments but was very lucky. Just remember MUMS YOU ROCK! Eventually they will sleep and you will wash/eat/dress/sleep etc.)

Happily though even with being locked down my husband, Charles and I stayed pretty relaxed, we had expected to be Homebods for a while anyway, so thankfully already had food shopping delivery booked, (We even had to order my mums for her in the end as she couldn’t get any delivery slots).

So whilst I was stuck on the sofa nursing Lizzie, I stepped up the social media campaign and if you check out my pages on instagram and facebook you can see some of my progression that leads to starting this blog a few weeks from returning to my full time job and ……

I am BUILDING A WEBSITE!

One question . Am I mad? (Yes as I didn’t get it finished till baby 2 came along but I’m skipping bits and that’s for another blog)

No really I haven’t just made a 1 page site like I probably should have started out with. No…I set myself the task of an e-commerce website with a landing page, gallery, shop and blog and links to my print on demand and argh!!…. that’s a lot of things and they are not all finished YET!!

I think my mind may explode from all the computer work after such a long time away from one but actually building this site was not half the issue I though it would be. I have never made a website before but i’m reasonably tech savvy at times.

Firstly I needed a domain.. I went to IONOS to source my domain independently as I had heard about horrors re some providers hiking up the price after the free year you get when building a site. I decided I wanted to own my own .co.uk and .com’s from the get go. IONOS were pretty good, simple to buy and easy to register and they will auto renew which means I’m not worried about losing control of the domain and brand I’m working hard to build.

Then I needed a website to pop onto that Domain…

I did a little research (Thank you google and youtube!). I could have had someone make my site for me and save time, but then it wouldn’t be my site and would be harder to learn how to maintain it. I didn’t want to go with word press as I felt that was a lot of add ons to get my mind around, six seemed ok but I had a lot of referrals from my new crafting community friends and they suggested squarespace.

So with pointers from my husband and also my brother in law over @ FindingtheEdge never one to pass up a deal, I went on Topcashback.com and they had a money back deal for Squarespace so that clinched it.

Its a tad confusing at first and I recommend googling separately squarespace prices or following this link as the site actually directly leads you into choosing your favourite example site to work from and doesn’t mention cost’s at all to start off. I chose an art shop template and added the gallery and blog. I still need to activate the e-commerce section and haven’t tackle the shop yet but by the time you read this post I hope to have at least 1 item up!

The help section has been pretty good but in reality I have been using YouTube mostly to show me the way to go

Square space say about a blog post:

—— Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does. —-

That all sounded kinda deep-ish but very true.

This is my FIRST EVER blog post and well you can probably guess I’m one of those people that wants to give you everything all at once with a nice little bow and free gift…, well I can’t in this case as I’m learning as I go but hey you can always take a look around my site, check out my gallery and see a little of my personality right there on the page in the form of my art.

I’m going to leave this initial blog here as I still have a site to finish building… hopefully this all works and you lovely people get to see this.

Here is to more lovely waffles and a bit of art.