2011 Dodge Challenger at Port Taranaki

Late afternoon sun on a car parked down near the breakwater at low tide. The days are starting to get longer now.

Ombu

Here's a sketch of a 150-year old creepy looking tree. The hotel, where it's at, was somewhat built around it to keep it. It's actually a NZ Registered Notable Tree although when it was listed the site was still a church property.

Time for a Haircut

A sketch at the barbers that I go to. I like how the decor is a bit old-timey - a real barbershop. Snip snip, chop chop, talk some shop. Pitter patter, a bit of banter, and you're done.

Walk to Work Wednesdays

In August, New Plymouth organised a promotion to get people to walk, cycle or take the bus to work during this winter month. You could apply for a card from several cafes, and, each of the five Wednesdays, get a coffee for a dollar. Since I bike to work pretty much every day, I signed up and figured I'd just carry on cycling... but then, I hurt my back. It took a few days just to stand up so I wasn't doing anything for quite a while. The irony is that during this campaign to get people out of their cars, I've haven't driven to work more all year.
I'm on the mend now as long as I take it easy. I caught the last two Wednesdays and came away with this sketch of the inside of a cafe called Joe's Garage.

Rainy mornings in New Plymouth

More wet weather this week. This drawing was started last month. On a busy corner in New Plymouth, there's a cafe that looks out into the intersection. Since it's winter, it's still dark before work and the wet roads have lots of reflected light. I get a drink and sketch for about 15 minutes at a time. Now that it's August, I've noticed that I've filled up half a coffee card.

Turbo

Here's a sketch from a Classic Motorcycle Show. Although there were some very old and rare bikes here, I chose some from the early 80's. These three bikes all have 'Turbo' decals at least once on the outside. Of course, this is short for the Turbocharged engines that they had. This term is a bit spoiled to me and seems slightly kitsch now. Back in the 80's, there were so many things that were said to be 'Turbo'. Bicycles, Gobots, washing machines and pretty much any other home appliance at the time.
I also liked how one of the bikes had Turbo written in reverse on the front... as if someone has good enough eyesight to look in their rear-view mirror and can read that while driving.

Hockey: India vs The World

Occasionally, we'll go down to the hockey arena if there's an Inline Hockey tournament on. Earlier this year, there was an International Regional Qualifier Tournament. The best of this part of the world were fighting for a spot in the tournament with the big hockey-playing nations. When we first got there, a team from Taipei was playing India and up 8-0. Then noticed that the first digit on the score was dim and it was actually 18-0. The game finished 26-0 and India looked pretty shell-shocked. You might expect a team to let another up for air after a certain number of goals, but not this time. In this competition, if there was a tie it would go to points scored so all the teams were playing pretty hard against India. I just felt awful for them. I later learned that New Zealand beat India 37-0 and Japan went all the way to 42-0. On the good side, at least India didn't have to play anymore games this year.

In Memoriam

I went to the ANZAC dawn service this year again. It was another large turnout of people paying respects to those lost during different wars. I liked the darkness of the pre-dawn night together with the bright spotlights. It's hard to draw if your page is in a shadow so I found it more difficult than last year. (2015's is below)

Both of these were inspired by the 2014 sketch by Auckland's Murray Dewhurst. I really liked the blackness of the night, the strong shadows and the bright coloured spotlights on the monuments. This drawing of his (below) made me want to try my own:

Also, fairly recently, an urban sketcher from Germany, Florian (Flaf) Afflerbach, passed away. He freely admitted that he was starting to be known as 'the car guy', but didn't seem to mind. (I'd be okay with drawing cars like him too!) They were usually European cars in a three-quarter view with a slight 'fish-eye lens' distortion to the middle/closest area of the drawing. When our local sketch group was invited to draw a local car collection, I tried to draw a 1973 Triumph Stag in his style as a sort of tribute. (See Florian Afflerbach's sketches here.)

Paritutu

Paritutu is a 150 metre tall volcanic rock on the coast of New Plymouth at Port Taranaki. It's a pretty weird mix of nature and industry here. You can climb the thing and see Mount Taranaki, the Tasman Sea and the natural coastline of cliffs and black ironsand beaches. Then turn around and you get the start of the port and tank farms. The smokestack that's there is from an old gas power station and is taller at about 200 metres.

Waitara Kids

Here's a group of kids in the town of Waitara at the end of summer. They came over and kept turning the pages, wanting to see my previous sketches. Then everyone wanted to pose on the large rock except I'd already drawn that bit. One of them soon had the idea to pretend to climb up the fire escape on the building. After almost 10 minutes of uninterrupted drawing, the mob was back to have a look. Everyone liked seeing themselves in the drawing except Mya, who was on the ladder and half hidden. She convinced me to put her in again, beside the tree in the background.

Taranaki Multi Ethnic Extravaganza 2016

This sketch was done when we were watching the performances at the Taranaki Multi Ethnic Extravaganza. The group performing on stage was a mix of Maori and Irish musicians. The songs with the Maori vocals of Morgana James sounded really amazing.

AmeriCARna

Even with a bit of rain, the final day of the Americarna festival was still popular. I had a prime position on a bench with a view of a massive 1959 Cadillac with huge fins and rocket engine tail lights. When it started to look like it was going to start getting wet, that all went out the window. I didn't wait for a clear path and just drew everything. What you see is a Star Destroyer sized Cadillac with three people and four cars in front of it. (For the enthusiast, a 2008 Mustang Shelby, 1934 Chevrolet, a 1970 Rambler Hornet, and like last year, a 1956 Chevy Belair.) A special shout-out to the several people I met from Wanganui who are waiting for the final version of this one.

Below: Last year's Belair