Te Henui Bridge

This is a pedestrian bridge that forms part of the Coastal Walkway. It crosses the Te Henui stream just before it flows into the sea. I did the watercolour about half a year ago but I didn't really like it and put it away. After I did the pen sketch, I pulled out the other one to compare (as it was of the same place). Maybe it wasn't finished, maybe it needed more paint, maybe the darks weren't dark enough... It's hard to say since I'm sort of just starting to use watercolours myself. So I went back into it and did some more painting; it's much better than before. I saved it but it's a lesson in how important it is to get the right amount of paint/water when putting down colours the first time on a page.

Colourize Project: Pohutukawa

Here's a watercoloured sketch of a Pohutukawa tree. It's a native New Zealand species that has bright red flowers at this time of the year. I've heard some Kiwis say that this is a New Zealand Christmas tree (I guess from them being red and green over the holiday season).

Parking Building

Just a parking building with an ugly green wall. The painted white triangle is mysterious to me as it aesthetically does nothing, yet it is there.

ORD

After the Global 24-hour Sketchwalk, I gave a presentation and lead a sketchcrawl in the afternoon. It was an event tied to the 'Homework' art show at Puke Ariki, here in Taranaki. I went out looking for something to sketch and looked at the display house that Habitat for Humanity was constructing. The group uses an old Bedford truck to move supplies and gear around. It was missing a wheel, on a jack, and was waiting for its tire to be repaired. I also noticed that it was missing the letters "B-E-D-F" so it was now an "ORD". Yesterday, on the way home from work, I went by the house to see how far along it is now. The truck was there again and another flat tire. I stopped to chat with the guys that I met on the weekend. It turns out it was the same tire. They were happy with the result of the finished sketch and I got them to hold my drawing in front of the Ord.

Global 24-hour Sketchwalk

Last weekend was the Global 24-hour Sketchwalk where groups around the world took turns providing reasonably live images and video of people sketching around the world. It started here in New Zealand and every 15 minutes the spotlight shifted a bit more westward, finishing in Hawaii. When I went to sleep that night, The photos were coming from Lebanon and Africa. I woke up and the footage was from Boston.

Motorama 2017 (and 2016)

Went to Taranaki Motorama again this year and ended up looking at a 1980 Pontiac Trans-AM. The sketch on the right is the one that I did last year at the same show at East End Reserve but haven't uploaded it until now.

Liardet Street

I just got back from my annual holiday so I haven't been drawing much the last few weeks. Same vacation as last year; it's the one where I hurt my back and do nothing for a while. It's good to be drawing again.

Colourize Project: Tugboat

Colorized version from two years ago of a tugboat between the two breakwaters heading out from Port Taranaki.

Roulette 63824

Here's a set of three sketches of a fishing boat out of water getting some kind of work done on it. (In the August sketch, it's not the boat in front on the left.) I've done one per month so it's been there for a while now.

Colourize Project: Len Lye Centre & the White Hart

Some people have seen this colour version of this sketch but I haven't uploaded it here until now. This is when the Len Lye Centre opened and they closed down the street so that everyone could take selfies in the stainless steel walls for the first time. This was also done before the White Hart Hotel had the glass put in on the balcony so it's still a bit more old-timey in this sketch.

Colorize Project: Huatoki Street Art

Huatoki Plaza, where the recently flooded stream flows, has several major wall areas in or near it. Some of the artworks last a while and other walls seem to rotate more frequently. This is part of my Colorize Project so these are old sketches. The 2015 sketch looks pretty much the same where the 2013 wall has been painted over.

Colourize Project: Huatoki Stream

A couple of nights ago, we had a fair bit of rain here in Taranaki. When some people woke up this morning, they found themselves flooded. For the most part, if you lived near a river or something you might have had a bad day. There's a stream that flows through central New Plymouth and it overflowed in parts. These two sketches show that area in nicer weather. They both are part of my 'Colourize Project' where I take old sketches and give them the colour treatment.

Cafe on the corner

There's a cafe on the corner with a big window towards the intersection. I like the variety of different directions and I can practice my life drawing. The one above, I did this week. The one below, I did in 2015, but never uploaded it. The bottom one is a coloured rainy early morning sketch from 2016.

Kawaroa slide to the sea

Just a quick one of a couple of slides in a park by the Coastal Walkway. Spring is almost here. This winter I've noticed a bunch of sketches and coloured sketches that have never been scanned or and/or uploaded. I've also added to the pile so I'm going to try to catch up so and start fresh for the better weather.

On the corner

When this one was started, I was just looking for a warm and dry place to do a bit of sketching. I ended up in the Egmont Street Deli and came back there on multiple lunches to finish this one off. While the building on the opposite corner has tons of detail, that's not the reason that it took me so long. It turns out that the person who makes the desserts at the deli really knows what they are doing. So, I ended up doing way more eating at lunch, than drawing. (If you're the one responsible for that and are reading this, I think that the orange chocolate torte should be available EVERY day.)

The Breakfast Club

Winter sketching means coffee shop sketching. If it's rainy I'll have a drink someplace dry before work. One wet week, I went to Joe's Garage pretty much everyday. There's a bunch of very regulars who meet up there and chat before work. It's always a varied selection of the usual group of people. Each day I drew a different person. As a result, some of the very regular Joe's didn't make the cut while one guy made it into the drawing two times.

I also included a colorised version of an older sketch from the same place.

New Plymouth Ravens

A while ago we went to go see the New Zealand National Inline Hockey Tournament, here in Taranaki. Truth be told, I just went to do some sketching. One of the games was actually pretty exciting though. The local, New Plymouth Ravens, pulled their goalie in the last seconds to tie it up and send it into overtime. The game winner was scored by one of the smaller players too. So I came away with this sketch and brought one that I made of last year's tournament to get the colour treatment.

Ponsonby, Auckland and Airports

We've had a couple of trips to Auckland lately. There wasn't really much time for sketching other than at the airport. One morning though, I decided to get up just before dawn to get another drawing in. The previous evening, I noticed this one building had a nice glow from the signs, lights and interior lighting that disappeared during the day.

Colourize Project: Security Pipe

The marina off the breakwater at Port Taranaki has a weird gate that seems to be a large steel pipe with a door cut into it. Here's the colour version of a sketch from a few years ago.

Colourize Project: Blagdon Hill

More rain!.. So I'm dusting off some old sketches again and giving them the colour treatment. This one is from the hill in Blagdon. It's a patch of steep farmland surrounded by houses. The local New Plymouth station, Access Radio Taranaki, broadcasts from the top and they have great sea views from up there.

Port Taranaki

The other day I was biking around the port area, looking for something to draw. I noticed a road sign that said 'Port View Crescent'. I've never been there before but with a name like that I went up the road hoping for a good view. Not much yet so I turned off a side street and had a nice open vista over Port Taranaki. Actually, between the end of a driveway and the start of an open grassy strip there was a park bench. I'm not sure who's it was but it overlooked the port and was out of the sun and under a tree. So if someone's reading this and noticed, "Hey... that's my bench", I hope you don't mind and thanks for putting it there!

New Plymouth ANZAC Day 2017

I've been out sketching other things since it's actually been pretty dry lately, however here is my finished ANZAC Day dawn ceremony sketch. As you can see I've made most of it way darker. The areas that you had seen in my previous progress pic are sort of visual notes reminding me that these are the really dark areas. This allows me to do a reasonably detailed sketch of something that is only there for a short period of time. This is my third ANZAC sketch, three years in a row. I didn't plan on coming out to do another one this year, but my sketch from last year was chosen to be in an art show in New Plymouth (running from June to November). This sort of motivated me to try it again. I don't think I will do a fourth any year soon but I'm happy with three; they look good together.

Progress Pic: ANZAC 2017

Here's a sketch that I did at the Taranaki dawn service on ANZAC Day in New Plymouth. For those that aren't from down under, this is a very early morning Remembrance Day. (ANZAC stands for Australia & New Zealand Army Corps.) So it's very dark but there are also bright spotlights. It's hard to see the dark bits while blinded by bright lights. Still, I found a good view that didn't have a spotlight facing me, but still had enough light to see my page. I also had to keep in mind that when the people get there they might be casting a shadow on my book. In the end, I just started and hoped for the best!
At that time, most of the people weren't there yet. I started to draw the monument, trees and black foreground tree shapes. I keep doing that until the people show up and settle in the place that they will be. I have about 20 minutes the draw as much people as possible. By the time that's over, the suns coming up and everything looks quite a bit different. What you see here is about an hour of drawing. The people in the foreground will have very dark shadows, with highlights around the edges of each on, due to the spotlights. It's mostly like you see but darker. The monument the the mid ground people will also be darker, remembering that the main light is coming from the right. The trees could also barely be seen so I'll build up quite a bit of ink. Although they are white as you see now, they will blend into the sky. This seemed like something I could do later so I left it at the time.
That was about a week ago now and I've been chipping away at it a little at a time. I always think that I am taking notes, as in I draw enough of each part so that I remember what each part looked like. My next post will be the finished one and you can see how it turned out.

Making time for fries

I've been busy this month with lots of extra jobs. As a result, I haven't made time for sketching. One day, I did have some extra time when I was in town and saw a sign that said "Curly French Fries". Oh, aggressive marketing... you win again! So I sat at a table with a street view and did this one.

Other than this one, I have a few 'sets' of sketches but won't put them up here until each group of 2 or 3 is done. They just look better when they are together but with some of them, I'm waiting for things to happen, like construction. I was also at the ANZAC dawn service and did half a sketch. I thought I might put up a progress pic of that one before I finish it. I know some people are interested in seeing how I start.

Taranaki Multi-Ethnic Parade

I didn't plan on drawing the Taranaki Multi-Ethnic Parade. I came down to see it and was just going to draw the New Plymouth clock tower as I waited for it to start. When people started to wave the flags around though, I decided to include the crowd that was growing, just before the start of it.
When the parade was finished, I was still drawing and some of the groups were now walking back to the start area where, I guess, their cars were. On the sidewalk, there was a group of Irish kids together with some Chinese kids, both in national costume. Proud mums were taking photos of the multicultural bunch who was having a good ol' time. They were just having fun and not noticing that what they were doing was actually the whole point of the event.

Americarna 2017

The 10th year of the popular Americarna festival was still popular. After a very rainy Taranaki summer, the weather in New Plymouth was perfect for the multi-day event. I just sat in the shade and sketched the people looking at the classic cars.

Below is an Impala and a Belair from two years ago, and I've coloured last year's sketch too.

Bus Station Primping

On the left here is the New Plymouth Bus Station. While I was sketching, saw a bunch of people arrive on a bus. The last guy out seemed to be sorting out something in his bags for some time. After the bus and other passengers had gone, he stood up and adjusted his backwards-worn cap in a slightly reflective glass door. Front. Side. Tilt head up. No way. All wrong. Cap off. Get the knitted winter hat out. (It's summer.) Front. Side. Smiley head shake. Still no. Back to the cap. Still backwards. Maybe push it a bit forward though. Side. Point at yourself in the reflection. Yeah. Now it's doing it. Awesome. Where's that hostel?

Spitfire

I was at the Stratford Aero Club's Open Day in central Taranaki on the weekend. Just after we got there, a Spitfire arrived from just off the horizon. The pilot did some close fly-bys and tilted the wings for the cameras. I've heard fighter planes before and this one didn't have a usual deep rumble that a grunty aircraft engine would make. It sounded like there was still a lot of power there but not as loud as I expected. I've read about the Spitfires and they were quite renowned for their performance in the skies. It seemed very classy (and stealthy?) to be 'that kind of fighter plane' and yet have this nice purring engine. These are great planes!

After it landed, and parked on the airfield I started to sketch. I overheard someone say to another enthusiast that this particular Spitfire was a seven-eighth size replica with a V8 engine. 

Oh. 

I just kept drawing...

That palm tree

There's lots of wind and rain this summer. So far I haven't been that productive. When I get like this I just draw our palm tree that I see from my desk. I've drawn it about five years ago (included here) and I'm surprised that I can see how much it's grown just by looking at the two drawings. It's hard to notice when you see it everyday. About two years ago I did a watercolour and that's included in this set too.