Catalina

Catalina reconstruction reportage team

9th April 2016 "Soldier's Cottage" Pendarves Street.

This is my sketch of the "Soldier's Cottage" on Pendarves Street from last week:

There were a lot of angles and a lot of difficult perspectives to deal with. A comment was heard, "Oh man, and the window is open!"

And some photos:
Playing with black and white.

 Trevor sketching from in the garden.

 Brian sketching hiding in the corner.

 A good afternoon's work!

Paris Plage

Petite Paris operates Paris Plage out of a couple of shipping containers at the East End Reserve.  Well patronised by Coastal Walkway users.  Today was gorgeous - still and sunny.

Coastal Walkway Views

Sketched by Patricia

Soldiers Cottage - 89 Pendarves St

89 Pendarves St, New Plymouth: Batten - board style.

Our hosts kindly provided water and a tour in addition to letting us sketch their historic home. London newspaper wallpaper dated 1859 was glued to a former wall.  The location was considered a safe area between Marslands Hill and Niger Fort.

It was six years since we had sketched the three of the five 'Chickens' of 1860's 'Hen and Chickens' fame across the road. The Hen being the parent's (Thomas and Grace Hirst) home, and the Chickens identical houses for the four daughters and one son.  The Soldiers Cottage predates the Hen and Chickens.

84 Pendarves Street

 90 Pendarves Street

 98 Pendarves Street

A day of no sketching.

So there was no sketching today as the weather was atrocious! Absolutely pouring down. Luckily I had a pen and wash workshop to go to which was very worthwhile. It was run by Maxine Thompson.

The kit she asked us to use was very simple and familiar except the pen. This was fantastic, very water soluble and it split into different colours when you blotted it depending on timing.

We started with trees:

And a bit about reflections in water:

Then fruit:

After that we went into our own ideas using photos as inspiration:

Using angles adds character. I had trouble staying away from my watercolours. So this one is pen and wash with watercolour added.

This one was pen and wash.

And yes, I did another one with watercolour added.

And for the final one of the day I tried adding watercolour pencil, which wasn't quite so successful.

Waitara Kids

Here's a group of kids in the town of Waitara at the end of summer. They came over and kept turning the pages, wanting to see my previous sketches. Then everyone wanted to pose on the large rock except I'd already drawn that bit. One of them soon had the idea to pretend to climb up the fire escape on the building. After almost 10 minutes of uninterrupted drawing, the mob was back to have a look. Everyone liked seeing themselves in the drawing except Mya, who was on the ladder and half hidden. She convinced me to put her in again, beside the tree in the background.

Taranaki Multi Ethnic Extravaganza 2016

This sketch was done when we were watching the performances at the Taranaki Multi Ethnic Extravaganza. The group performing on stage was a mix of Maori and Irish musicians. The songs with the Maori vocals of Morgana James sounded really amazing.

The old and the new

1950's Austin K2 Loadstar Series II on its last journey

2015 Ferrari 468 - rally in town

Truck graveyard

Brian & Scott sketching on the flatbed

Sketched by Patricia