The delight of painting _en plein air_ had first been tasted at Shere in the spring and summer of 1878, where she was passionately happy in watching the changes and developments of the seasons, being in the fields, lanes, and copses all day and every day.[9] Almost as full a feast had followed at Haslemere in 1880. When these were succeeded by a permanent residence in front of Nature, studio work became more and more trying and unsatisfactory. To most people of an artistic temperament the abandonment of the figure for landscape would never have been the subject of a moment's consideration, for it would have appeared to them the desertion of a higher for a lower grade of Art. But from the time of her arrival in the country there seems to have never been any doubt in Mrs. Allingham's mind as to the direction which her Art should take. The pleasure to which we have referred of sitting down in the open air before Nature, whose aspects and moods she could select at her own will, and at her own time, was infinitely preferable to the toil and trouble of either illustrating the ideas of others, or building up scenes, oftentimes improbable ones, of her own creation. From this time onwards, then, we find her drifting away from the figure, but not altogether, or at once, for as her family grew up, scenes in her house life passed across her view which she enjoyed to place on record, and for which the world thanks her: scenes of infant life in the nursery, such as "Pat-a-cake" and "The Children's Tea"; in the schoolroom, such as "Lessons"; and out of school hours, such as "Bubbles" and "The Children's Maypole." In one and all of these it is her own family who are the chief actors. The portrayal of her children in heads of a larger size than her usual work was at this time seen by friends and others, who pressed upon her commissions for effigies of their own little ones, a branch of work which promptly drew down upon her the disapproval of Ruskin, who wrote: "I am indeed sorrowfully compelled to express my regret that she should have spent unavailing pains in finishing single heads, which are at the best uninteresting miniatures, instead of fulfilling her true gift, and doing what the Lord made her for in representing the gesture, character, and humour of charming children in country landscapes."