Otago Chambers

Where's the Otago Chambers? 800 kilometres away in Taranaki, of course!

Baby Blood

Apparently, I have baby blood. That's what the nurse said when I was donating blood. It turns out that it wasn't an Arnold Schwarzenegger type of insult. Mine just happens to fit the uncommon criteria if a new born baby needs a blood transfusion. Afterwards, I had a cuppa and sketched the other donors.

Moturoa Shops

I'm sitting on a bench in Moturoa. Sketching in the shade, seeing the poor parking techniques and noticing how every old guy walking to the bank is still carrying a chequebook. When you're drawing, this stuff seems to pop out. Across the street is Asian Food Supplies; they specialise in asian food supplies. Beside that, just on the outskirts of the shops are a few houses that have Pizza Hut roofs, like back when Pizza Hut used to be restaurants. (Google image search "Pizza Hut Roof".) I've included a couple photos that describe the architecture better if you still can't see it.

Colourize Project: Railway Walkway

Here's another sketch from three years ago that I've added to my 'Colourize Project' where I take old sketches and give them the colour treatment. This was sketched a couple weeks before the Christmas holiday and wrote this:
"This is an old railway line with a pretty cool stone wall that runs between two busy streets in New Plymouth. Now it's just for people. On each side of this thin park is crazy traffic caused by crazy people, desperate to finish their year-end chores. Everyone is so rushed here in New Zealand at this time of year. A Christmas / Summer combo holiday makes people insane, irrational and very tired. The big solid rock walls insulated against the noise and was a nice lunch hour time-out from the frenzied late-December pace."

Unloading a ship at Port Taranaki

Tons of identical trucks queue up to unload a fertiliser ship at Port Taranaki