Take that

What happened next? I reckon the Woman in Black cornered her adversary, threw down the riding switch and then wrestled her over her knee. Under a barrage of spanks guilt was admitted - and only then were a dozen good stripes with the switch applied.
Maybe not, but I do like the way spanking art lubricates the imagination. I came across this one at The Spanking Art Blog and it caught my eye.

I've done some searching for pages about Sarah Bernhardt and there's plenty to read. She does sound like a bit of a brat, but I can't find any mention of Marie Solombe - wonder what the real story was?

Classic art: Lewis Bald

Forget Downton Abbey, this is a genuine vision of the Edwardian period. A stern educator administers a fearsome birch thrashing to the plump bot of one of her disobedient charges.
The work of the illustrator Lewis Bald is marvellously erotic. It's mostly not about bare flesh, instead corsets, petticoats and lovely roomy drawers conjure up the sexiness.
Apparently Bald was working  between 1909 and 1910 providing illustrations for French publishers of naughty little stories like 'Le Fouet dominateur' and 'L'École du fouet'. I wonder why he spent so little of his career creating CP-related stuff?

Such passion

Just sitting here looking at favourite image blogs and I fell in love with this one at the fabulous Schund & Schmutz. I know the USP of this blog is spanking, but isn't this a beautiful work of erotic art anyway.

And maybe some governess or strict papa will turn up in a minute and inject a little spankoness into the scenario...

Oh, and I've just asked Google Translate what schund & schmutz means. It says 'maltreated and dirt', which if it's right is intriguing.

How boring is that...?

How come she's so uninterested in the fix she's got herself into? Panties down and the cane's there ready for use but she looks like she's totally bored by the proceedings.

Maybe it's a different take on cornertime. Instead of an hour in the corner waiting for your whacking you get an hour bent and ready - and cornertime can be seriously tedious.

Or perhaps she's a repeat offender, such a Punishment Room veteran that she's just not bothered anymore. Sort of "see if I care". Familiarity breeds contempt, I suppose.

Whatever it's about, it's a great drawing - I'd love to see more of this artist's work. Anywhere know who its by? Thanks to the first-rate Spanking Art for posting it for us all to enjoy.

Picture perfect

What makes the perfect spanking picture? Difficult to say, isn't it? Everybody's equation of perfection would be different, I'm sure.

In my real world job I get to work quite a bit with photographers, so I take an interest in what is - and isn't - a good image in an editorial context. A friend sent me an online lecture by the photo director for National Geographic, who's called David Griffin.

I've just been watching it - it's worth a look if you're interested. He's got an interesting insight. And he uses funny examples, which helps make the point.

Everyone has a great photo in them, he says. But a great photographer has to have great photos to deliver time and again. 

What Griffin says is that although we're bombarded every day with moving images, the still image still has the power to make a connection at an emotional level - if it's really exceptional. It's like the mental image you have after a car crash, that frozen flashbulb moment that encapsulates all the emotional power of the experience.Anyway, it got me thinking about how there's now a deluge of spanko images coming at us where once there was so little. Old Janus and Februs images are remembered like old friends, now nothing much stands out. 

For me David Griffin's flashbulb moment seems to apply to what I see in the spankosphere to some degree. Stills register, video mostly doesn't and it's the still images where I can find my way into the emotion - the ones where I'm sitting in that car that's heading for a collision.I like this picture because I feel like I'm sharing her apprehension, like its me that's going to feel that nasty big paddle. It makes me want to ask questions like what was it that she did that was so very bad?

But there's not so much good stuff around, is there? Maybe that's why I'm so much in love with spanko art. With so many photos out there it's harder and harder for something to leap out at you, but a great piece of art - a Stanton, a Malteste, a Jim Black or whatever - nearly always makes the connection.

More motorway

Eating up the miles - and the fuel, sadly - and now I'm taking a tea break. I've just been browsing through a cool image blog called Spanking Art (which does what it says on the tin) and have picked this pic for the next hour or so's bit of the journey. 

Remember those writing exercises they gave you in school? Here's a picture, now write a story about it. 

And this is the one for this afternoon. It's a school setting, clearly. Miss Slim, the Vice-Principal (Discipline), is just about to apply the cane. But why is the girl in the corner looking so please? If she's going to get the same surely she'd be lookling a little more worried.

If it's any good maybe I'll make it a short story and share it with the world here.

Montorgueil's women

There's something about the women in F/M art. They have presence, poise, charisma or whatever it is. They often have a really good wardrobe too, and nice shoes.

Here's an example - the work of artist Bernard Montorgueil. Did he only do femdom subjects? 
I would love to see his take on FF situations.
His women are so elegant and cool, I love them. 
I've been trying to find out some more about him, but there doesn't seem to be much to go on. This page at Mistress Fantasy seems to be the jist of it. You can see more here, here and here too.
A lot of  what he drew is way beyond my domestic discipline comfort zone. Too many nasty whips and bed of nails for me, not enough of the cosy stuff like hairbrushes and OTK.
But I love the settings, the clothes and the rest of his more domestic stuff. Whoever or wherever, Montorgueil certainly has the knack of creating a kinky fantasyland that I find seductively believable.

PS, since I posted this a kind follower has just emailed me the address of a photoblog called Strict Women, so I could admire the shoes. It's the place to see Montorgueil's women made flesh. And there are some really to-die-for heels there to enjoy too.

Surf break

Up early today to face a day wading through a mountain of words. I can only do editing in big chunks, but today I fear I may have bitten off more than I can chew - 30,000 words by the end of the day...
I plan to be especially sharp on the use and abuse of the semi-colon today, thanks largely to a useful discussion about punctuation over at Remittance Girl. Already straightened one or two out since I started and it's only breakfast time.
'Breakfast' is probably stretching it as I've only had a coffee and a short recreational bit of web exploration. I've been trying to find out a bit more about the artist Jim Black, but haven't got very far. Apparently he was a Belgian whose real name was Luc Lafnet and who died early in World War Two. He lived in Paris and published his erotic art under pseudonyms - one of which was Jim Black.
The Jim Black drawings are wonderful. I love the energy of them - there's usually a lot of emotional intensity in there. The spanker is in a passion and is spanking in anger. Often every muscle is being tested by the effort of correction. At the same time the poor spankees (both female and male) are overcome by the moment.
Anyway, no more spanko surfing - the semi-colon calls.