Exocet

Here's a fishing boat that is double parked to the main launching dock. I'm not sure why since there were other places to berth to. The sailors had to climb to the larger diving ship and then to the dock to get supplies loaded. Important things like fuel and hot lunches from a nearby restaurant. About halfway through this one the ropes were untied and it sailed away. This is a bit worse than when cars do this.
The name Exocet has the same as an anti-ship missile and is French for 'flying fish'. I guess this is a good name although this doesn't seem to be a particularly fast vessel.

High Tide Coffees & More

A mobile coffee shop that usually hangs out at Oakura Beach, which is down the coast from New Plymouth. (I looked it up on Google.) It's currently in town for the arts festival evenings.

Return of the Gallery

The re-opening of the Govett Brewster Art Gallery, including the new stainless steel Len Lye Centre. They closed the streets around the building for the opening ceremony (but mostly so that everyone could get photos and selfies in the mirrored steel outer surface). The White Hart Hotel, one of New Plymouth's oldest buildings, is an interesting neighbour for it. The old and the new, both very challenging to sketch. The White Hart just has so much detail. If you don't draw it all, when do you stop? And the Len Lye Centre, is just plain weird. It's like trying to draw a Photoshop filter. I sat on the step across the street for several hours while trying to figure out where it all goes.
#LenLye #LenLyeCentreOpening

Cold King

Cold winter sketching standing in the shade. I wanted to draw down the street showing the slight s-bend. There are times when only that certain viewpoint will do, so it was nice to thaw out in a cafe after this one.

Winter in Huatoki Plaza

It doesn't take much sun to change Taranaki people's minds to get outside. A break in the rain and everyone's walking in different directions like they're on a mission. I've drawn the Huatoki Plaza in New Plymouth a number of times. I was looking at my sketch archives and noticed that they are pretty much all done in the winter. So here I am again. I was on a mission too.

Hard Helmet Diving Suit

New Zealand's had a lot of rain last weekend with quite a few places becoming flooded. Even with the rising levels of the Huatoki Stream beside it, one of the most dry places in Taranaki for sketching was in the museum in New Plymouth. I started to draw this 1950's hard helmet diving suit since I found it interesting and I was amazed that it was still used until the late 1960's. When I finished this drawing, I wondered if the staff might have to use it soon. It's supposed to rain again this weekend.

Radio Hill in Blagdon

From the Access Radio Taranaki broadcast tower hill in New Plymouth, you can see the Blagdon shops and the horizon line goes out to sea. It's a bit weird that this hill has cows grazing around it in the middle of houses. An oasis of rural in suburbia. A few years ago I drew the front of the shops and the hill and the radio towers are in the background. I'm still amazed that the convenience store is still open beside the 4 Square (which is a chain of small grocery stores). It seemed like poor planning having a shop that sells the same kind of stuff (but with less group wholesale buying power), open roughly the same hours, and with less product selection. Yet years later, it still exists. I wonder if there is a secret.

Fair May at the Mayfair

A welcome break in the rain today... It was the sunniest day in recent memory and I had the day off. Having drinks outside and sketching! (A shout-out to the staff of the Mayfair in New Plymouth for being generally awesome.)

ANZAC Dawn Ceremony in New Plymouth

The ANZAC Day Dawn Ceremony commemorates the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) World War One dawn landing in Gallipoli. This was the start of a large joint campaign (in what is now Turkey) that lasted the good part of a year. In the end, it was a bit of a stalemate but there are probably tons of stories from the Great War that involved sacrifice without much progress made. Today, ANZAC Day is a day honouring people that played a part in all the wars like a North American Remembrance Day. 2015 was the 100 year anniversary of the ANZAC troops in Gallipoli so it became a big deal in the media. As a result, lots of people assembled at memorials all over Australia and New Zealand. This morning, just before dawn, New Plymouth also had a large turnout and I came away with a night sketch.

St Andrew's Syndrome

In 2009, St Andrew's was the location of the first ever Taranaki Sketchers sketchcrawl. (This was back when the group was just Scott and Paul!) Due to the misleading and deceptive height of the tower, it was found to be difficult to fit the building to a page without cutting off the top or distorting and shrinking the overall drawing. Since then, if a local sketcher can't fit a subject on a page or squishes the image to contain it, it is said around here that the drawing may be suffering from St Andrew's Syndrome.
I don't believe that I've given the original location a try yet, so when we were invited by the church to draw their home, I was curious to see if I would experience the phenomenon. It turned out that the affliction started to develop! I cured it by constantly turning pages. What you see here is a completed fifth start.

Fernery in Pukekura Park

A good place to practice drawing plants of all type is in Pukekura Park's Fernery. Didn't know about the weather last weekend so felt safe inside the glass roof.

Chaos in town on WOMAD Weekend

New Plymouth was pretty busy on WOMAD weekend. Lots of world music fans from all over came to town to see the festival. In all fairness though, the people of Taranaki love their cooked breakfasts and coffees and this cafe is chaos EVERY weekend.