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.

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.

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.

Fitzroy Dairy

A bit of a return to form. Although it used to be common, I haven't used a red pen on a sketch for at least five years. I drew this convenience store seven years ago and included picture of the CookieTime cookie monster on the top. This time I tried to show a glow that emanates from the actual chocolate-chunked beauties themselves.

Fitzroy Lifesaving Club Kiosk

I drew this one last summer but waited until it was coloured before I posted it. Turns out that it took me a year to bring it back out. I remember sketching it. Last year we had a terrible rainy summer with that one day of sun. Well, this was that day and it was a scorcher. I had a tons of sunscreen on but in the end, it was pretty brutal just sitting in the sun drawing. The worst part was that I kept looking at the "ice cold drinks" sign the whole time. I promised that when I was done, I was going to walk over there and buy one. It was maybe one of the best drinks of my life.
So here we are one year later and it's been very warm every single day. The Fitzroy Surf Lifesaving Club Kiosk is in colour. I've actually printed and framed this one and is now added to the window at the Bookstop Gallery as part of my display for the month of February.

Fitzroy Beach Holiday Park - More

I had to agree with Trevor and went into the Fitzroy Beach Holiday Park. It was a great weekend to be at the beach. A camping spot here on a weekend like this would be uncommon, just metres from the beach.

I'm finding the weather lately a little too hot to function normally. I sketched this trailer (caravan) while sitting in the shade. Even then I almost found it too hot to concentrate. To make matters worse, I forgot to bring my swimming trunks too. On my way home I picked up some ice cream and promised myself to go back to beach the next day - properly. So today was just as hot but I was ready this time and brought my bodyboard too. I stayed in there riding wave after wave until I was sick of it. I purposely left my watch at home.

Fitzroy Beach Holiday Park.

I decided to sketch the Fitzroy Beach Holiday Park shop and not the surf carnival as it was very hot and by doing the shop could sit in the shade.

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.