Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
Just back from spending Easter in Akaroa on Banks Peninsular. Here are a couple of landscape sketches. The top one is a view from high up on the ridge road looking down on the harbour. And below a sketch from the boat club past the lighthouse with the 'Sun Princess' in the distance. Akaroa is taking all of the cruiseliner visits since the earthquake out Lyttelton out of business. Several thousand new tourists in town every other day must be a real bonus for local business.
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