Keeping it in perspective

Our son, Sam, came home from school this afternoon and showed me his art book. He is at Soham Village College and wasn't keen on the art teacher last year who just loved himself soooooh much. He isn't much better this year but at least they're doing some interesting things.

Today's lesson was all about the different uses of perspective in graphic design. I learned that you can have linear perspective, where, if you used lines, they would all meet at one point if you joined them up; perspective of scale when objects in the foregoround are drawn larger than the same kind of things in the distance; contour perspective when people or objects in the foreground block out or overlap part of the things bheind them; textural perspective where textures such as grass are clear and recognisable in the foreground but fuzzy or less distinct in the distance; finally aerial perspective when artists use paler or bluer colours for objects in the distance.

Not only did I learn more about perspective, it also took me right away from the IPA web loading I've been doing all day and helped me put things in their rightful perspective. Knowledge doesn't and shouldn't be confined to the work you do for money, but it's very easy to fall into a prison trap where the walls of your office are also the limits of your perspective.

Candles

As I drove up the rise to Devil's Dyke yesterday, the sky was dark and foreboding, almost in keeping with the history of this part of Cambridgeshire. However, on my descent into Swaffham Prior, the streetlights twinkled like candles on cakes. I have a lot of work pressure on my shoulders at the moment but they were like signs of hope - little beacons of reassurance.

The same thing happened approaching Lode and Stow-cum-Quy until Cambridge itself rose up in the west and pronounced that faith and knowledge would be lights through any darkness, however impenetrable it may at first seem.

Humbled

My wife Michelle is planning a major show at her dance school - the Samara Ballet School - in the early part of next year. A major part of this is creating, adapting and altering around a thousand costumes to fit children of differing sizes from doting mothers of differing notions of reality.

She is lucky to have a team of volunterrs to help her but not all come forward immediately. Today we met up with a mother of five girls who lives in a tiny house which is crammed with pictures, 'sculptures' and 'special things' created by her loving children. Their's is a hand-to-mouth existence yet she is always the first to help Michelle with costume sewing and is only persuaded to leave on show days when the final bit of clearing up has been done.

Her children are kind and gentle and frequently picked on and bullied at school. Her house is a haven and homage to family values. The school was set up as a community project and today, though humbled by unselfishness, I felt proud that it was, again, reaching out to and drawing in genuinely nice people.