Grahame Sydney, in the text, “An Artist’s Childhood” effectively uses of word choice, casual misuse of language structure and humor to establish an atmosphere of amicability for the reader.

“he would draw with a Black Beauty pencil in a Croxley Li-Flat spiral-bound sketch book.” This amount of specificity seems unnecessary but it makes the text humorous just by being a bit absurd. “…the front seat of my Hillman Minx…”

“That i was trying to be a painter…” This sentence starter is grammatically unusual yet it reads smoothly. This is to relax and deformalize the text in order to make the text warmer and more approachable.

To command attention, Sydney uses jargon/technical language to establish dominance and gain credibility from the reader. “…I see these excursions as metaphors for my parent’s devotion…”, “…cloying smell of developer and hypo fixing chemicals.”