Product vs. Process

The Painting

He was a little boy
And he was going to paint.
“What are you going to paint?”
Asked the teacher.

“The sky,” replied the little boy
And he picked up the brush
And dipped it into the paint
And painted a big blue sky
With a big yellow sun.

Then he turned around for
The teacher’s approval
But she moved on
To another little boy.

Then the little boy
Remembered the sky at dawn
With pink fluffy clouds
And a soft grey background.

So he dipped his brush
Into the pink and grey
And painted the sky at dawn.
But he’s seen other skies –
The sky at sunset
All red and orange and purple
So he painted the sky at sunset
Streaked with red
And orange and purple
And all the colours ran
Into each other
And the paper was very wet.

Then he painted the sky at night
And he dipped his brush
Into the dark blue
And studded the paper with
White stars and a yellow moon
And the sky before a storm
Angry and grey and dark,
And then he put down his brush
And stood back
Looking at what he had done

And that the colours had all run together,
All the blue and the pinkand
Red and orange and purple
And yellow
And had made a grey wet mess

“Goodness,” said the teacher
When she came back,
“That doesn’t look like the sky.”

But the little boy didn’t care.
It was exactly how
He wanted it
And he carefully put the painting
Away to dry.

by Winnie Pe##, 198#*
_{* unfortunately the only copy I have is very old and some letters were cut off the original by the photocopier.}

Taking a look at some of the most recent blog images reminded me to post it. I wish I had read it when I was doing my A Levels and constantly getting criticism for not sharing the same vision as my art teacher; maybe things would have turned out differently. For starters I wouldn’t experience the urge to be sick every time I see a vase of dying flowers.

M xxx

: 10 Jan 2007 18:41 |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem