Triumph

 Triumph - polished up  and ready to go - a cool $13500. Great colour . I'm sure those at home would understand !  MLB  - 0.04 drawing pen and Tombow.    MLB .

Fresh Prints of Bel Airs

Americarna, the American Car Festival was in New Plymouth last weekend. Again, the CBD was closed down and became a classic car show. Angela and I found a shady bit with a view between two blocks of cars. Half way through our drawings, we realized that we were drawing the same type of car... a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air! 

(Car Nerd Info: The 2nd car behind my Bel Air is a 1960 Chevrolet Impala.)

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:

6 October 2012

We had two events on this Saturday.
The first was the 24 hour book sale,Brian Jackie and myself spent the last two hours sketching the keen book worms.

At 2.00pm it was off the PukeAriki to be entertained by Horomona Horo who talked about and played early Maori musical instruments.Jan, Paul and myself tried to sketch in the dim light,a very enjoyable afternoon.

24-hour Booksale

The annual 24-hour charity booksale. Everyone here is browsing though a stadium full of donated books. This is a sketch of the final hour where either the procrastinators or the penny-pinchers are here to get a deal. In the final minutes, the speaker kept announcing better and better deals as I was drawing in an attempt to move the large hoard of books.
(I've always been curious to know what type of person comes out at, say, 3.00am to look at books, but I'll never know - I'm not that type of person.)

Twenty Four Hour Book Sale. TSB Stadium.

Today we went to the twenty four hour book sale which went from Friday Midday  until Saturday Midday. We were there for the last two hours. The sale is run by the New Plymouth Opera House Friends Trust, with proceeds going towards special projects at the TSB Showplace. Last year they had about 70,000 to 80,000 books, but this year it was close to 100,000. That is quite a stack of books. Twenty tonnes, in fact.

We sat up the top where it turned out we weren't meant to be and tried to sketch the action.
Here are my efforts:

 The ladies at one of the wrapping tables.

 The Last Hour of the sale.

Performing Arts Collective

                  
We were invited to sketch at a show by the Performing Arts Collective at the New Plymouth Club. I found it a bit difficult since the acts changed quite frequently and I usually take ages to draw. I was also a bit tired from the Morley Street sketching earlier in the day. Still, I was generally happy with this one.