THE SQUIRREL AND THE GRASSHOPPER

REST OF THE WORLD VERSION

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE END

NOW THE AUSTRALIAN VERSION

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.

The ABC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.

The Australian press informs people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer while others have plenty.

The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and the Grasshopper Housing Commission of Australia demonstrate in front of the squirrel's house.

The ABC, interrupting a cultural festival special from St. Kilda with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing 'We Shall Overcome'.

Bill Shorten rants in an interview with Laurie Oakes that the squirrel got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his 'fair share' and increases the charges for squirrels to enter the Melbourne city centre.

In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The squirrel's taxes are reassessed.

He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home, and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work.

The grasshopper is provided with a Housing Commission house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile.

The squirrel's food is seized and redistributed to the more needy members of society – in this case the grasshopper.

Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home.

The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Australia as they had to share their country of origin with mice.

On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Australian's apparent love of dogs. The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody.

Initial moves to make them return to their own country are abandoned because it was feared that they would face death at the hands of the mice.

The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from people's credit cards.

A 60 Minutes special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel's food, though spring is still 4 months away, while the housing commission house he is in crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain it. He is shown to be taking drugs.

Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshopper's drug 'Illness'.

The cats seek recompense in the Australian courts for their treatment since their arrival in Australia.

The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing and old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks.

He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him.

Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.

A Commission of Enquiry, that will eventually cost $10 million and state the obvious, is set up.

Additional money is put into a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers.

Legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased.

The asylum seeking cats are praised by the government for enriching Australia's multicultural diversity and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats.

The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose.

The usual sections of the press blame it on the government for failing to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience in prison.

They call for the resignation of a minister.

The cats are paid $1 million each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in Australia.

The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses, their taxes are increased to pay for law and order, and they are told they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.

This then, pretty much sums up what is happening in Australia today. Lucky country?

THE END

Outback Sunset - acrylic 30x40 cm MJB 11 Feb 2015

Replaces a similar painting destroyed in 2011.

POVERTY IS MAN MADE - “For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them. … Instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that nobody's under the frightful necessity of becoming first a thief and then a corpse. ...One man to live in pleasure and wealth, while all others weep and smart for it, that is the part not of a king, but of a jailer.”

                              The Tower of London

Sir Thomas More, 1478 – 1532, Lord Chancellor to King Henry VIII of England, author of 'Utopia', published in 1516. He was beheaded by Henry VIII in 1532. He could not accept Henry as head of the Church of England, nor Henry's disregard for the welfare of his subjects.

NOT MUCH HAS CHANGED

Art and Grace

Art and Healing

A little Assistance for those who might try Painting - from an artist who came from the School of Hard Knocks

Basics for Painting

Michael Bull – June 2010 - shared June 2013, 2015

 

If you think you might like to try painting, this blog may save you several years of finding out what you need to know. I wish someone had given me this before I started. It may have saved dozens of failures, although failures are the way to learn.

The four factors which most affect the end quality of a painting are:

1. Colour – colours in a work can be complimentary to each other or not. Where possible use complimentary colours. Examples are blue/orange, violet/yellow, green/red. White is the brightest colour in a painting and is often used as highlight on other colours. A 'colour-wheel' is most helpful.

2. Contrast – contrast is the combination of dark and light in a picture. There can be no light in a painting without the contrasting dark area. Always plan for a dark area to bring up light in another area. Contrast is the most important of these four factors.

3. Texture – texture is the combination of rough and smooth, shiny and dull etc. These are a different form of contrast and can often be used to enhance.

4. Drama – drama is a concept which is also related to contrast, and in a landscape might be considered the 'wow' factor, or it may relate to the subject in a painting containing animals or people. It enhances the focus of the painting and is the emotional part of a work. Art, like music, bypasses the reason process and appeals directly to emotions.

The Canvas – divide the canvas into thirds horizontally and thirds vertically. The top horizontal area would normally be background (or sky), the centre the mid-ground, and the lower the foreground. The vertical divisions are a guide to maintaining a balance of the subject matter and avoid crowding one side or the other. The focus of the picture is normally within the centre square, but avoid putting the focus exactly in the centre of the centre square.

Colour Mixing – If you add white to a colour it becomes a tint of that colour. If you add black it becomes a shade of that colour. The primary colours from which all others can be mixed are white, black, red, yellow and blue. For example, red+blue = purple, blue+yellow = green, red+yellow = orange, red+green = brown, white+black = grey. All of these can then have many different tints or shades.

Where to Start – You need to paint a picture in your mind before you brush a stroke. This may take days, while the painting itself may only take hours. Be aware that the painting rarely turns out exactly as you had in your mind. Photographs are useful to refer to for detail which you may forget, such as the colour and shape of hills or vegetation or people or animals. Photos normally do not have that 'wow' factor you need in a painting and once you have used the photo for details, put it aside and concentrate on what is right for the painting. Simplicity in a painting is often very effective in enhancing the end result if the four factors are present.

After you have planned your painting often it is appropriate to put in a basic colour backwash to which you later add more layers or details. For example, a blue where the sky is to be to which you may later add cloud, red/ brown/orange/yellow for earth, green for grass or forest areas etc. When the backwash has dried then start on your detail. Some people find it helpful to add the dark areas first and work through to the detail and main subject. Painting from the distant to the close saves having to repaint areas or getting overlaps wrong. When detail has been added, use an appropriate colour for shadow (often a shade of the colour where the shadow falls) then finally add the highlights to the subject ( it may be a dab of white on the top of the hair or clothes for example) to bring up the light in the picture.

Expect a lot of failures when you start painting, you need them to learn as you go. Look to see if all the above four factors are present. Chances are that they are not all there in a failure. Every painting you do, success or failure, will teach you something. If you are lucky enough to find a constructive critic it will help accelerate your learning process. If you never start you'll never know.

Which Paint Type? – Oils, acrylics and water colour all require different approaches. Oils take a long time to dry and need a turps solvent. Messy. Acrylics look like oils when dry, dry quickly, have water as solvent, and are relatively inexpensive. They are probably the best for beginners. Water colours are normally used with paper rather than canvas, and therefore require framing. You choose. There is no right or wrong here.

 Jabiru in a Boab Tree - MJ Bull 2010

What about Results? - This picture of a morning scene in the Australian north-west, the Kimberly region, displays the complimentary colours, (blue and yellow/orange), the contrast , (sunlight and shadow), the texture, smooth grey sky and rough foreground swamp, and the drama of the unusual boab trees against a spectacular sedimentary rock mountain range with the added interest of the Jabiru bird with its nest perched in the top of a boab somewhat like an eagle. Although this painting is not the most brilliant I have ever done, it does contain all of the four elements aforementioned and sold very quickly. It has been my experience that if you get all four elements, then the picture is saleable to the right person, usually one who identifies with the the subject. If you sell on the coast, paint coastal scenes. If you live inland, paint the things these people identify with. One subject area (which is somewhat overdone in Australia) is subjects relating to the past, which often strike a chord with older people, such as old buildings, farms, machinery etc. Look at your local demographics for a clue as to what might sell.

 Lake Argyle Sunset - MJ Bull 2010

Here is a very simple painting using colour, contrast, texture and drama. Drama and Contrast are very closely related. In this case the Pelican provides both. The Texture contrast is between the sky and the shiny water. 

Hope this is of interest and is helpful to those starting out in art. Another mistake I have sometimes observed is a foray into 'abstract art' before learning the basic skills of more conventional art. There is no way to succeed in abstract art without some basics, it is not a shortcut to developing the necessary skills. 

Good Luck !

Art and Thought

Art and Ageing

Originally shared by +mary mchugh

The Southern Ocean - A Ferocious Sculptor

Pictures from the Great Ocean Road on the southern coast of Victoria, Australia.

Ayers Rock and the Olgas - acrylic 40x30 cm