Glen Stuart - Bracken St

 The owners of this unusual Bracken St home kindly let us sketch.  It was built in 1911 for NP businessman Charles Stuart Curtis in what was then Glen Road.  Designed by Stratford architect J Healy.  Suffering damage in a recent tornado it underwent much rejuvenation including reroofing with imported US rubber tiles.

Infusion

 Market Day approaching the busy season.  When the vendor saw me sketching and I offered to send him a copy he kindly gave my some yummy beef.

New Plymouth Yacht Club

 

Maori Artifacts

 Puki Ariki museum has an excellent Maori section.  Here are a few items:

Colourful Villa

 Today some of us had fun sketching Virginia's colourful early villa in Devon St West  She tells us it began life as a cottage built in 1862 with the frontage added in the 1870's.

Fitzroy Beach

 A no-breeze glassy-water morning at Fitzroy Beach. Lots of surfers. 2 hours later, a breeze made it cold, the water was choppy and the surfers were gone.

Alfa Romeos

 A calm New Plymouth morning found 50 Alfa Romeos from all over New Zealand parked up by the sea for their 'Show and Shine'.

The oldest there - 1958

All the way from Christchurch - with some coaxing when starting

I gather the cross is derived from the Milanese warriors, the right hand snake part was the symbol of the influential Visconti family.  The crown for when they became dukes in the 15th Century.  However I was puzzled about the bloke in the snakes mouth.  One owner suggested it represented a Saracen.  Alfa = Anonimea Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili. Originally made in Milan in 1910, it was bought by Nicola Romeo in 1915.  The company now owned by Fiat produces in the centre of the country in San Germano, not far from the site of the Battle of Monte Cassino - known to many New Zealanders

Palm tree in the rain

In July, I drew our palm tree in the rain. This week, I added some colour to it.

Palestine Protest

 Protest at the Landing today raising awareness about the annexation of Palestine.

Unloading a Windfarm Part 2

 

Unloading a Windfarm

A ship in Port Taranaki, New Zealand, unloads parts for a windfarm. I think that the parts were made in Italy but I'm not sure.

Symmetry of Plants

 

Sketched by Patricia

 The excuse to invite our Taranaki Sketchers around was to celebrate the installation of my pou which includes our family background, origins, interests, jobs and waka (ships our families immigrated on)

Pukekura Park

 While Brian was sketching the lake and Poet's bridge I sat in the sun and drew the queueing at the Tea Rooms ice cream hatch

Pukekura Park

Drawing and painting the lake in Pukekura Park. I put another layer of pen after the watercolours (that is not shown in the video.)

Coastal Walkway

 

Drawing and painting on the Coastal Walkway in New Plymouth. 

The White Hart

 The White Hart Hotel next to the clocktower.

The Good Home Rooftop Bar

Clock Tower Len Lye

Another drawing of the funhouse-like reflections of the Len Lye Centre's stainless steel walls.

 

Port Taranaki Boat Ramp

I had a sheltered spot out of the winter breeze at Port Taranaki. Exposed people were still launching boats and walking to the end of the breakwater.

Pandemic hockey

Last weekend, we went to see some amateur inline hockey games at the local rink. The local senior team was hosting a neighbouring city. It was a best two games out of three series. For the first game, I noticed that the home team had two complete line changes on the bench. The visiting game had just one guy extra. That team was doomed. It was only a matter of time before the team got tired and the goalie couldn't handle the barrage of shots anymore.

It was kind of nice to watch a casual league hammer out a few games though.  In a Covid-19 world, it's nice to be able to sit anywhere in the bleachers, among a bunch of random people in a place that vaguely smells like athletes, and still not worry about getting sick.

In the end, they only played two games since they didn't need the third. The Ravens just had way more players. To be fair, it's easier to make up a team if there's no travelling to another city and three of them are brothers*. 

(*Not the Hansons!)

FItzroy intersection

Fitzroy has a weird intersection that isn't straight through and the main traffic flow bends around an angle. On one of the corners is a bench. If you sit there and sketch, it gives the impression that you sat in the middle of the road.

Moving St Mary's Vicarage

The St Mary's vicarage was moved forward by these trucks from Bulls.  Behind will be car parks. This is all part of the St Mary's Earthquake $15 million upgrade project

Fitzroy

This northern suburb of New Plymouth was a land purchase called the Fitzroy block after New Zealand's third Governor, Captain Robert Fitzroy (1843-45).
Fitzroy captained the ship The Beagle back in 1831 which carried Charles Dawin on his famous voyage.

Stone Carving

Martin was a good sport letting us sketch him andesite carving today at te kupenga.

Off to the slaughter-house

The mid-week Okoki Expeditionary Force sat in the middle of a soggy paddock and sketched the Urenui slaughter house.  Built around 1979 and used as an abattoir for 100 years for sale of meat in Urenui.  The two layered roof was for ventilation.  Vertical board and batten rimu exterior and framed in 4" x 2" rimu.  At one point it had been converted into accommodation.

Brougham Street tree

You could say that this is a sketch of the hotel on the corner. You could also say that this is a view of Brougham Street looking out to the sea. It actually is of the the large inner-city tree at the top of the hill. That other stuff just happens to be in it too.

Coastal Walkway

On the first Saturday after New Zealand went to level one, the sun came out and tons of people were on the Coastal Walkway in New Plymouth.

Potpourri

Nice Hotel today above, Nice hotel below 11 years ago.

Peggy Gordon's Pub corner

East End

Sketching at our place this time

Monarch Butterflies

On our daily Covid19 exercise walks around an adjacent schoolgrounds, we noticed a late-season swarm of monarch butterflies. So I took a few videos to do some drawing and painting at home.

ANZAC Lockdown

My grandfather and two brothers went to Gallipoli, two came home.  He set off aged 21 and got home 6 years later.

Lockdown Garden Art

Exercise this weekend - to sketch some of our garden art

Lockdown Cartoon

Lockdown Front Door

There was some concern about the muscular legs

Iona Dairy

In New Plymouth, the Iona Dairy has a reputation of reasonably generous scoops of ice cream. So after a bit of drawing and painting, we decided to go for a taste test. What do you think?

This one was actually done a few weeks ago. You know... before the world was put on Pause. Looking forward to getting back to normal things like dairy product research again. In the meantime, I'll be drawing and painting (and snacking) around our house.