Paul Grand ~ Carved with pride!


Sunflower landscape, originally uploaded by Paul Grand.

I feel as if I've been raging at art critics all my life,
in my infants school when I was about 6 years old I did a crayon drawing.
As the sky took over most of the page I was sent to see Miss Winterton, the headmistress who brought her corgi dog with her into school each day, a witch of a women who I remember would take great delight in reading out a long list of children killed on the roads every morning at assembly, I digress. She took one look at my picture (a landscape, not unlike the above) and said it was 'all wrong' I'd used too much space!
I cant remember the punishment but I do remember coming out of her office in tears.
This is where I wish I could go back in time and give that evil women a good talking to, ask her;
" Why she was such a power tripping anal hag"?
Going on to tell her;
"People like her shouldn't be let anywhere near children, let alone manage an infants school full of fresh,
innocent kids to have her 'old school' sadistic Victorian, uptight values screamed at them".
I'd also love to ask her, (as it used to fascinate us in the playground)
"What was it with the one big toe always bent upwards"? - In her over-tight, brown leather pointy shoes"?
I think we came to the conclusion that it was her 'starter foot', for the broomstick!


Several years later I grappled with the Golden section, I often use its formal 'suggestions' to this day.
Just last year I heard of the 'Rule of Thirds'. What a great little rule, I see many people follow it to the letter and thus I see many boring photographs...
If you knew the history of the Royal Academy in London, you'd know it was run by the worst kind of establishment snobs, who detested any kind of new art movement until it was coincided safe by the art critics in newspapers,
this place was where the Rule of Thirds came from.
The over-sized, bewigged statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds still stands in their courtyard, bizarrely, he was an ugly, squat and pugnacious little man, but his statue is of a tall, handsome fellow.
I expect its how he saw himself after the application of his rule of thirds?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds

Only yesterday somebody said, about the picture above; "lovely field. i would have loved more field than sky i think"
So I took a look at his photographs in flickr, just to confirm that this guy 'knows nowt about style'
And true to form I saw; boring boring, same, same.. he'll go far!:-)
Ironically, this picture is probably 'The Picture' that most closely follows the rule of thirds that I've ever done!

A year or so after seeing Miss Winterton, I was brought to account again whilst still in the infants,
this time I received a slap across the face for decorating my white wallpaper backed book,
It was something like 'Wood-chip', and I had shaded it with my pencil, I thought it was cool, but she didn't and said;
"I was the type to carve my name into trees" Ouch!

In secondary school I did something similar and "overdecorated a lovely painting"
- she said, and was similarly told off, though mercifully without the slap.
So what did I learn? - I guess I never did, because I'm now helping to produce textures to be sent around the world,
to 'pollute' (their words) other peoples images!
Oh, and I never did carve my name into a tree! :-p

Comments

Anonymous said…
Love the sky. Some have no vision.
paulgrand said…
Thank you, I believe to follow your own way is always the best way to go!:-)
Liesl said…
I saw that comment and came over here to see it better on your blog. I'm no pro, but I'm learning. And I thank you for teaching!

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