Richmond Cottage

Views of Richmond Cottage.

Richmond Cottage

I found this interesting back door to the cottage, had a thought it might be the door to the wine cellar. So while waiting for it to open, might as well sketch it, sad to say the door never opened.

Richmond Cottage, Puke Ariki.

Richmond Cottage

Built in 1853-54 for Christopher and Emily (nee Atkinson) Richmond, the cottage originally overlooked the foreshore near the present Richmond Estate apartments. In 1960 the cottage was dismantled stone by stone and moved to its present site. In 1963 it was re-opened by Howard Parris Richmond, who was born in the cottage in 1878. The garden is a recreation of a typical colonial environment separated by the picket fence from the native bush backdrop. Story boards in the building tell the story of the Atkinson and Richmond families and their contribution to Taranaki and New Zealand history.

I was quite taken with the shingle roofing tiles on this historic cottage. Every single one was different. I decided not to attempt the whole cottage, but to focus on the roof.

Here is my sketch:

Richmond Cottage

Built in 1853 by a well known known New Plymouth family, this house was perched on the edge of the sea.  Later it was relocated, stone by stone to its present location incongruously tucked in against the Puke Ariki Museum.  A private and pleasant garden sits behind it from where I sketched.

Fitzroy shopping area

We had limited sketching options.I managed to find a shop which was closed and sat in the doorway, the other advantage was no cars could park in front of me.I haven't sketched with just a pencil for a long time, so it was almost something new.

Fitzroy Shops

This week the sketching was in the Fitzroy area of New Plymouth. I have to admit that I don't go here very often and when I do it's to go to the beach, which is really great. Although the beach is nice, I always felt that Fitzroy might not always be everyone's destination. It doesn't seem like a place that people go to but a place that people move through. On one of the last Christmas shopping weekends... at lunch time... and near an intersection, I watched time-poor and desperate drivers become careless and precarious. Are these Christmas shoppers or is it always like this?

Darnell Street, Fitzroy, New Plymouth.

Today we sketched in Fitzroy. While the others sketched the main street, I went looking for a house to sketch. There are a lot of quaint old houses around the area.

I chose this one because it is being repainted. I was amused by the choice of colour. The walls are pretty typical of a lot of houses in New Plymouth, but the orange/salmon pink of the roof and under the eaves I found bemusing.

While I was sitting accross the road sketching, an elderly gentleman was painting his shed. Not once did he notice that I was there.

Here is my sketch:

Fitzroy

A location we haven't sketched at.  No wonder as there are no landmark scenes, so the challenge was capturing the ordinary, something some of our members do well.
Lucky Takeaways, Fizroy Dairy and the TAB.  The guy with the maroon station wagon we decided was an avid betting man, he went into the TAB several times, drove around the block, but was kind enough to park his car for long enough for us to sketch it, unlike the other two.

New Brougham St Space

Sunny day, The Mondegreens playing, kids drawing in chalk, a pleasant offical celebration of the new area.

The DJ following on:

 

The path to PukeAriki

I sat in the shade on the path up to PukeAriki looking down on the art market, just outside the Library.

Out and About near Puke Ariki.

This week we had a guest sketcher with us, Lim Su Min from the Urban Sketchers Singapore group.
Here is a picture of us all:

Liz, Su Min, Scott, Brian (hidden), Coreen, Jackie.

Here is Su Min's sketch:

I chose two locations, the first at the Art Market in front of the Puke Ariki Public Library. The area in front of the libaray is in the process of being revamped and is almost finished. It was hosting the Art Market for the weekend. A good spot to sit and sketch, but very hot in the sun. My paints were almost drying before I got them onto the paper!

Next I did a quick pencil sketch sitting in the shade outside Puke Ariki Museum.

Puke Ariki Nikau Palms.

Bikes by the Landing Cafe

The two guys in leathers approached me half way through this sketch.  They kindly walked around the block again to let me finish.  A gorgeous day for sketching (and biking), one was from Auckland and the other Masterton.  The renovated area in front of the libary is well patronised.  We'd sketched the diggers here earlier during construction.

I had 20 min left for a quickie sketch of the cafe after the bikes departed.  Today we welcomed visiting Urban Sketcher Su Min from Singapore to join us, which made the sketching world feel smaller.

Walking into Estella on the Camino de Santiago in Spain.  A month long walk over mostly rural Northern Spain following the ancient Pilgrims Route from the Pyrennees to Santiago Compestella on the coast.

Another section of Te Araroa - The Long Pathway - completed. New Zealand's official walkway from North Cape to the Bluff.

Follwing the Waikato River.

New Brunswick - Virtual Paintouts subject for November.

Puka Tree in the Rain.

Today some of the group were away or couldn't come, plus it was a very wet day. So the task was sketch wherever you are, whatever you are doing and then post to the blog.

This is my "Puka Tree in the Rain" as I looked out my conservatory window.

Wednesday Art Group

A painting for Real TART's Christmas Exhibition.

The theme is:

"That Holiday Feeling"

Here is the original sketch:

And the painting:

Long Lazy Days.

Bruce's Dairy

Bruce's Dairy - A corner store that is on a corner and beside a roundabout. This seems like a pretty good location to me. It had a steady flow of traffic but I didn't draw any cars today since there weren't any that stayed long enough.
While I drew this building, I witnessed the death of a car. It looked like it had overheated. I could hear the mobile serviceman informing the owners that it would take more to fix the car than they had originally paid for it. I watched them all leave soon after. The owners came back with a rental car and loaded all of their belongings into it. After they drove away, a tilt-bed truck later came for the body. It reminded me of the time that my car died. It was in the middle of nowhere and that was reasonably difficult to sort out. Now this car, coming to a stop here (or just to the left of my sketch actually) is in town and right across the street from a place that sells pretty much everything.

Old Barrett Street Hospital Gates.

In less than forty years these gates have gone from representing.

HOPE - CARE - and  LIFE
              to
POLITICS - BUREAUCRACY - and  GREED.

Barrett Street Hospital Gates, Dawson Street, New Plymouth.

Today we sat on the footpath and sketched the old Barrett Street Hospital Gates. They are old and broken, padlocked with a

                                                                WARNING
                                                     Tresspasers will be prosecuted

sign, and have grass and weeds growing around them.

I found them a challenge to sketch and capture their age and dilapidation. Once they must have stood proud.

Here is my sketch:

Old Barrett St Hospital Gates

A shadow of its former self, these ornate gates, were rusting. 

An unwelcoming sign, padlocks and weeds greet the passer by.

Devon Street in New Plymouth

Here is some more downtown sketching in New Plymouth done about two weeks apart. Devon Street would be the main retail shopping street and this intersection at Currie Street is, in a way, the centre of town. This divides Devon Street East and Devon Street West and the address numbering increases in both directions, starting from this corner. The centre of town!



This next one took about a week of lunches to finish. A nice shady spot on Devon Street West about three or four buildings down the street from the other drawing's point of view. You might be able to figure out which building this is in the other drawing too. (Hint: The tallest one.)

Puke Ariki

People visiting an exhibition at Puke Ariki museum in New Plymouth.

Shadowing Venus

Shadowing Venus: Pacific Adventures of Joseph Banks.
Main Exhibition Gallery, PukeAriki.
7 July - 11 November 2012.

Sketched 3 November 2012

Rhodo Festival Cars

Midst Ian and Elsie Lind's extensive nikau pathed garden, is Ian's 'shed'.  Four gleaming vehicles, not to mention a gleaming floor, complete with juke box and pump.

Here are just two:

1950 Ford F1 pickup

1934 Buick Convertible Coupe

Shadowing Venus: Pacific Adventures of Joseph Banks.

Today we went and had a look at this exhibition at Puke Ariki.
Aboard the Endeavor with Captain James Cook were Joseph Banks, scientist Daniel Solander and artist Sydney Parkinson.
The exhbition includes 46 framed prints from the Florilegium, plus four actual specimens of pressed flowers and leaves collected by Joseph Banks and fellow botanists on the HMS Endeavor in the late 1700's.

Banks' Florilegium Volume: XXII
Plate No: 452
Current Binolmial: Fushia excorticata
Banks/Solander: Agapanthus calcyfloris
Common Name: Native Fuschia
Maori Name: Kotukutuku/Konini

Here is my Sketch:

 

Raglan

Arts and surfing town Raglan

 

Municipal Building - a band was packing up their gear from the previous night's gig

 

The Blue Chook - back packer accommodation at Kawhia - pop 100 - coastal beach town south of Raglan

Powerco Taranaki Garden Spectacluar

Peranakan Lights installed at the Brooklands Lawn in New Plymouth's Pukekura Park.

We all went in different directions this Saturday. Jackie went to Honnor's Farm Museum. Paul and Maurice went to Hurworth Cottage and Eileen and Myself sat on Brooklands Lawn and Sketched the Peranakan Lights. Later we all met at the Kiosk in Pukekura Park.

Honnor's Farm Museum.

At present in Taranaki it is the Garden Festival which runs from the 26th October until the 4th November. Today we all had different ideas of what we wanted to do so we split up.

I went to Honnor's Farm Museum on Waitara Road, where there is a large collection of over 40 tractors, hay bailers, ploughs, water pumps and stationary engines. Some were fully restored, and some were on the "to do up" list.

This is the Honnor Doe Tractor. Built by three generations of the Honnor family combined.

During the 1950s farmers in the UK in need of high-power tractors had few options. Essex farmer George Pryor developed an ingenious solution to the problem by creating his own tractor. He did this by purchasing two Fordson tractors, removing the front wheels and axles and linking the two by means of a turntable which provided the steering action powered by hydraulic rams. This left him with a double-engined four-wheel-drive tractor capable of producing more power and outperforming any of the conventional tractors on the UK market at the time.

Here is my sketch:

Pukekura Railway

The New Plymouth Society of Model & Experimental Engineers offered rides on miniature coal-powered steam engines for a dollar. 'Pukekura Railway' (as it is named) is a small double loop track in central New Plymouth. From a distance, these tiny trains seem like toys but they are actually pretty cool (and reasonably powerful) little engines.

Model Engineers

Alf's Burrell Traction Engine

Getting up steam

New Plymouth Society of Model and Experimental Engines.

Today was a lovely sunny day just right for sketching Model Engines. The New Plymouth Society for Model and Experimental Engines were celebrating their 60th Birthday this weekend. They are open all of Labour Weekend, so you can go and have a look, or have a ride on a miniature train for $1.00.

 Traction Engines.

From big to little to inbetween.

And Miniature Trains. This one is a DSA New Zealand Railways shunting engine.