World Sketch Day - Stratford Air Show

The classic Spitfire and its close US cousin the Mustang at the air show . Well done to the Stratford Aero Club for a most enjoyable day.  MLB

Stratford Aerodrome Open Day.

Today was Worldwide Sketchcrawl Day. Brian had the great idea of going down to the Stratford Aerodrome which was having an open day. There was plenty to see, and too much to sketch!
The open day went most of the day, so we were a bit staggered in getting there, (hence no group photos), but I'm sure we all enjoyed the challenge of sketching aircraft. There were plenty of big planes and a good display of model aircraft as well. I sketched one of each.

Here is my first sketch of a real plane:

Sonerai SS.
Pencil and watercolour.

And my second sketch of a model aircraft:

Stinson Reliant.
Pencil and colour pencil.

Stratford Aerodrome Open Day.

Here are some photos:

 Model aircraft:

 Mount Taranaki and the Spitfire arriving:

Aerobatic demonstration:

Stratford Air Show

That palm tree

There's lots of wind and rain this summer. So far I haven't been that productive. When I get like this I just draw our palm tree that I see from my desk. I've drawn it about five years ago (included here) and I'm surprised that I can see how much it's grown just by looking at the two drawings. It's hard to notice when you see it everyday. About two years ago I did a watercolour and that's included in this set too.

BUGS! Our backyard heroes.

Today we attempted to sketch a new sculpture on the foreshore walkway, but there was a bitter wind which was very unseasonable for January. We gave up and went elsewhere. I went to Puke Ariki where there is currently an exhibition called:

"BUGS! Our backyard heroes."

This exhibition includes a massive collection of bugs which has been donated to Puke Ariki. Some pretty, some not so pretty but very interesting to look at. It also has a few live specimens as well, including American Cockroaches. I didn't sketch them as they made me feel ill!

I chose to sketch a couple of the pretty ones. I decided to use pencil and watercolour pencil.

Here they are:

Morpho rhetener. From South America. This one is male and kept changing colour depending which angle you looked at it from.

Ornithoptera urvillianus. From Papua New Guinea. This one is female.

Here's a few more photos, there's lots more to see. I may well go back again.

14th January 2017 The original Gypsy Fair.

We went to The original Gypsy Fair at Merrilands School.

I was quite taken with this house bus and trailer. I guess if you're going to have a trailer, you might as well have one in keeping with your house bus. This one belonged to the Leather Goods guy. He used it as his workshop.

I tried something a little different this time, and sketched across both pages in my sketchbook.

Here is my sketch:

Sketching with paint

High and Dry

Sketching with paint  - new experience for me using diluted water based acrylic and knife edge.  MLB

Masters Building Demolition

I had the day off, so I went into town to find something interesting to sketch. They were dismantling the Masters Building on Egmont Street. A lot of people stopped by to watch and some commented that they would miss that building. There's a lot of discussion about preserving the heritage buildings but most aren't earthquake safe. Some need saving but they need to be functional to make the idea realistic. It's maybe more important to make sure that the new buildings that replace these ones have a bit of style and character. It will help them stay occupied and not just be another box. All these older buildings that people love, used to be modern buildings that people love when they were first built.

Tupare Gardens.

We were sketching at Tupare Gardens again today. I decided to carry on with my lamp idea and found this old Wall Lamp. Again I drew in pencil and then finished with watercolour. This time with a little bit of splattering to give texture to the old walls of the building. Construction of the building began in 1932 and finished in 1935.

Here is my sketch:

This is my previous Tupare Lamppost sketch: