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Painting and Story by Lehan Winifred Ramsay
Friends, gather round at my sensibly clad feet, for I have a story to tell. It is about shading, which I learned at school. Sadly I am not good at geography. But I am very good at shading.
This is because I moved to Queensland in the seventies. Queensland was a very hot and bright place at the time, but it was also known for being shady. So shady it was that the Federal Government of the time was unable to penetrate the glare and give us what many people in this fair Oz of ours experienced as a “modern” education.
We learned to shade by using pencils and small pieces of paper, no doubt supplied by our homes, to render maps of Australia and not a few of it’s States on browning mimeographed copies of the Commonwealth Bank stencil. Personally I loved it, as did many of my peers, for it gave me the time and patience to grow up and experience the shade for myself.
Friends, I present for you my design for the Kevin Rudd Tshirt Competition, 2012.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Warning to viewers this video contains distressing footage.
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I did intend to post the above Queensland police training vid below Lehan’s comments regarding growing up in Queensland in the 70s (see below)
Lehan Ramsay says:
November 4, 2012 at 9:16 am
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You’d think it’d be an easy enough matter to erect idiot-proof barriers around the base of the girders, wouldn’t you…?
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It was fun ‘Shoe; and mercifully short…
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The Wallooper directing traffic whilst someone’s trying to jump above was interesting so was the lack of harnessing. Wouldn’t happen nowadays.
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I did wonder if you would view it to the very most end and get the 70s punchline … ‘the psychology’ 🙂
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Oh I did, probably what passed for psychology in 1977;)
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No wait – that wasn’t a remake?
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How confusing. I thought it was the trailer for Argo.
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Didn’t he look like Bob Hawke though. Tusk tusk.
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Ahhhhhhh, maybe it’s a good day to go to the movies.
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Better put on my best socks. I’m a big fan.
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There are no shades of grey about Bonhoeffer’s actions. Even though he was a pacifist, and had devoted his life to trying to achieve peace, ultimately he understood that there was no alternative than to plan for the murder of Hitler.
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Kevin the cat looks like he got the cream. A shade above the rest perhaps.
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I grew up in Victoria and we did a lot of geography on the subject of Victoria. We had a stencil of Victoria. When shading I used a pencil and a piece of blotting paper to smudge it. But it was not a big deal, shading that is !
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I love this one, the painting and and the lovely little shading story…
At my school I was praised for my bold colours, and for my ‘braveness’ to fill the page…
My kids did their fair share of shading…with the pencils I had bought for them to take to the school.
I went to listen to a talk by an Australian conductor who travels the world: he was stunned when he found out that the instruments the little seven year olds were playing in Finland, were bought by the government, not by parents.
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I seem to remember ‘shading’ as an activity to keep little fingers active, and hence give the teacher five minutes of peace.
Does Kevin the Cat speak mandarin, too? Should he be wearing glasses? Does he only eat vegetarian ‘f^&*ing’ sandwiches on his plane? All important questions!
Nice shading, BTW.
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A vegetarian tyrant? Who’d’ha’ thought it? Hang on though… wasn’t Adolf a veggie? Maybe they’re starting a trend… Actually Kevvie does speak a bit of mandarin, though I’ve also heard ‘ta dong hen xiao’… (ie. ‘he understands very little’) It’s possible they weren’t talking about his linguitic skills or the lack thereof when my source said this, though…
Cats aren’t normally vegetarian; no wonder he’s pissed off all the time… probably Missus Kevvie’s idea, I’ll bet… I suspect Kevvie wears glasses to avoid being punched when he says rude things to people; just a theory… Another important question, M, is, ‘Are rude cats cool cats?’ I’d say no… on past performance I’d say our Kevvie’s more like a ‘cat on a hot tin roof’… Even in Lehan’s lovely painting, although Kevvie’s obviously trying to look cool in a self-titled lime-green pullover, he obviously looks quite ‘hot under the collar’… (not a bad likeness, Lehan btw…)
🙂
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‘linguistic skills’…
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A vegetarian tyrant? Who’d’ha’ thought it? Hang on though… wasn’t Adolf a veggie? Yes indeed…messes with the brain. As for his mandarin skills, I’ll probably never know.
I guess he deserves points for trying, he’s certainly pushing some thing mushy up a big hill.
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Ah, so that’s why his nose is that shape…
😉
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Now, there’s a ct on the mt agin. 🙂
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Interesting… this would have made a half-way decent rock-song in the 70s; but it’s waaaaaay too elaborate to be an effective add; should’ha’ bin short catchy riffs and a simple, even jingoistic, lyric… (that’s why ‘jingoism’ exists! … and ‘jingles’…) Mussay tho… summa thoze gals know how to fill a pair of jeans alright, tho!
A real time-trip that one…
🙂
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Thank you. For you. After long consideration of the options.
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Ahhhhh… doncha just lurve them blues…?!
🙂
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Yes, shoe, exactly. So there I was, growing up in Queensland, and wondering what was different. A party hides, that was the National Party government’s plan, and it was taken up with great enthusiasm.
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So then, once we were all big and grown up, we figured it out. We needed to break through to the other side! Make our own industries, get our own magazines!
But of course, the hide was over, we never realized we were just riding on the breeze of the elevator doors opening.
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And boy. Did they open.
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So then. Things must be back to normal now.
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Normal? Wossat?
😐
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When I was growing up, Asty, normal was like this.
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Now of course it’s all Harry Potter.
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When I grew up, there were many adults who read Harry Potter, so the author decided to write a book for adults…I wonder if kids are reading it… 🙂
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Hmm, that is funny Helvi.
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Poor thing…
😉
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