Just had time for a 10 min B&W sketch of the track leading to the Mission House- MLB

The old Church next to the Mission buildings in Moturoa- MLB

Ngamotu Mission Church

Ngamotu Mission house and church at Moturoa
(Alan sitting sketching in the alcove)

The joy of sketching

Scott sketched by Patricia on a cool, grey autumn day

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.

Maungaroa Windy Point Masts

The best panoramic view of New Plymouth is from Maungaroa Windy Point Hill from which the friendly people from Access Radio broadcast.  Five minutes into the draw, I wondered why I'd started, it was so complex.  The poor guy who had to draw the plans and specs for this mast!

Trees from Windy Point Hill

Sketched by Patricia

Salt Air

Battered commercial  fishing boats parked up over the weekend.

Manou's Cafe and Port Taranaki.

We were back at Manou's Cafe and Restaurant last Saturday. We always get a warm welcome there. This time from Manou and Chaddy.
So far I haven't sketched the actual Cafe, but the surrounding area. So this time I decided I'd better try it; and it just show's how good my observational skills are, I didn't realise until I was sketching that much of his cafe is put together out of fishing nets, rope and other fishing paraphernalia!

Here is my sketch:

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.)

Paradice Ice Skating

Second last day to carve up on New Plymouth's temporary ice rink.

Paradice Ice Skating

Sketched by Patricia