The Art of Urban Sketching: New international editions available!

The Art of Urban Sketching: New international editions available:
Now available in French, German, Korean and Chinese...

Auckland Sketchbook is 3!

Quechua ladies and their babies

It's hard to believe but this month marks the third anniversary of Auckland Sketchbook!

Yep, 3 years and 182 posts, covering everything from the Santa Parade, netball on the North Shore, the destruction of heritage buildings, the opening of the Wynyard Quarter, roadworks in Newton, classic cars in Te Atatu, Taro at the Otara Market, the 2011 Rugby World Cup and a sleepover at the Orakei Marae.

I'd like to celebrate with these sketches from a trip to South America in 1999. They aren't relevant in any way to this post whatsoever, but today it's bucketing down in Auckland, so why not think of somewhere more exotic eh? This trip got me sketching again after a long break though, so maybe it is?

The Rio Urubamba viewed from Machu Picchu, Huayna Picchu on the left

Aguas Caliente, the town below Machu Picchu.

Images of Architecture

Wright's Building, Fort Street

Britomart Station, Queen Street

This week is the Mairangi Art Centres annual Images of Architecture exhibition. This year the theme is Downtown, Britomart and the Wynyard Quarter. Here are my works entered in the show, I got into some of the older buildings that give Britomart it's character.

25-27 High Street

Ferry to Waiheke, again.

Support Your Homies

I was asked a good question about how I drew the skater - in one go or from a photograph? My answer; definitely drawn on site and the skateboarder is actually an amalgamation of 2 or 3 skaters.
I knew I wouldn't be able to capture the stunt in one go, so I looked for a repetitive action that I could sketch from over a number of passes. These guys were practising the same stunt (grinding?) on that edge again and again, and I thought the backdrop of the Sky Tower and motorway viaduct behind would make an interesting composition. Each time one of them went past I focussed on just one element of their form or posture, it took quite a few goes over about 10 minutes lightly in pencil first, then inked over once I was reasonably happy.

The clothes are a mix and match too, one guy had the orange hat, another the green cargo shorts, and another the 'support your homies' t-shirt, which was actually on his front, for some reason it appealed so I put it on the t-shirt back so it could be included in the sketch (I have no idea why we need to support our homies, but you can buy one from SOUF Skateboards here) 

Otara Market visit

Fresh Okra means I'm making Gumbo this week!

Waiheke Island Easter Weekend

We took the car ferry from Half Moon bay...

The ferry travels around Motukorea Island, one of Auckland's 50 or so dormant volcanoes...

Haven't actually drawn a map since my first job land surveying, so thought I'd try a sketchy one...

There just happened to be a fishing competition on at Rocky Bay on Saturday, and we'd taken the kids rods. No bites and we lost a lot of gear on the rocks! 

Tackle box...

Beach cricket at palm beach. The water is still really warm for this time of year...

We checked out the old gun emplacements and tunnels at Stony Batter then headed down the hill to Hook Bay, about a 40 minute walk, for a swim. The view is fantastic, right across to Mt Moehau at the top of the Coromandel peninsular which looks really close from here. We had great weather but it was raining over Mt Moehau...

Drawing the batch at Stony Bay...








The kids watching Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium...

Some Waiheke Island wildlife,

sheep who persistently tried to get

at our lunch, and a Weka. This one

appeared from the bush at Stony Batter, the first Weka I've seen in the North Island, perhaps they've been reintroduced to Waiheke? And below Tuatuas, there were heaps of them at Onetangi. Have you tried the Tuatua Twostep?

The batch again, lots of yachts and launches arriving from Auckand for the weekend..

A pizza stop at
Stefanos, we sat
out back by
the banana palms.
The Caterina pizza was good and they even do a gluten free pizza for our resident GF...

The trip back

to Auckland,

with Motukorea

and downtown

Auckland behind...