Fitzroy Beach

 A no-breeze glassy-water morning at Fitzroy Beach. Lots of surfers. 2 hours later, a breeze made it cold, the water was choppy and the surfers were gone.

Palm tree in the rain

In July, I drew our palm tree in the rain. This week, I added some colour to it.

Unloading a Windfarm

A ship in Port Taranaki, New Zealand, unloads parts for a windfarm. I think that the parts were made in Italy but I'm not sure.

Pukekura Park

Drawing and painting the lake in Pukekura Park. I put another layer of pen after the watercolours (that is not shown in the video.)

Coastal Walkway

 

Drawing and painting on the Coastal Walkway in New Plymouth. 

Clock Tower Len Lye

Another drawing of the funhouse-like reflections of the Len Lye Centre's stainless steel walls.

 

Port Taranaki Boat Ramp

I had a sheltered spot out of the winter breeze at Port Taranaki. Exposed people were still launching boats and walking to the end of the breakwater.

Pandemic Hockey

Last weekend, we went to see some amateur inline hockey games at the local rink. The local senior team was hosting a neighbouring city. It was a best two games out of three series. For the first game, I noticed that the home team had two complete line changes on the bench. The visiting game had just one guy extra. That team was doomed. It was only a matter of time before the team got tired and the goalie couldn't handle the barrage of shots anymore.

It was kind of nice to watch a casual league hammer out a few games though.  In a Covid-19 world, it's nice to be able to sit anywhere in the bleachers, among a bunch of random people in a place that vaguely smells like athletes, and still not worry about getting sick.

In the end, they only played two games since they didn't need the third. The Ravens just had way more players. To be fair, it's easier to make up a team if there's no travelling to another city and three of them are brothers*. 

(*Not the Hansons!)

Fitzroy intersection

Fitzroy has a weird intersection that isn't straight through and the main traffic flow bends around an angle. On one of the corners is a bench. If you sit there and sketch, it gives the impression that you sat in the middle of the road.

Brougham Street tree

You could say that this is a sketch of the hotel on the corner. You could also say that this is a view of Brougham Street looking out to the sea. It actually is of the the large inner-city tree at the top of the hill. That other stuff just happens to be in it too.

Coastal Walkway

On the first Saturday after New Zealand went to level one, the sun came out and tons of people were on the Coastal Walkway in New Plymouth.

Galaxian

Back in the very early 80's, you could not play video games at home. Instead, tall machines, that could each play one type of game only, packed video arcades. They had awesome artwork on the sides to make up for the prehistoric graphics. I've always loved the retro-future artwork on Galaxian. (Someone should make a video game NOW, using that illustration. The robot insect aliens, future cities, and a split in half moon would make a great game.)

Coleco had the idea of making small electronic games that were similar to the stand-up full-sized games. Although not the same, they played in a similar enough way that made them quite popular. The TV ad showed a fantastic 'Mr. Arcade' that was (magically?) shrinking the different games for the addicted kids so that they could play them at home.

I made a video that shows a Galaxian arcade game and the (poor quality, yet awesome) TV commercial.

(You can also see this game in my previous sketch of my computer desk.)