Welcome to Auckland Sketchbook

Welcome to the blog. On the this site you will find recent sketches right through to truely terrible sketches made on location over 20 years ago. Looking back at those sketches I sometimes wonder why I even continued with the practice! So why do I sketch? 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. Alon...

Tsunami Warning

Almost business as usual at this Auckland beach yesterday. Lifeguards keep a weary eye on the horizon whilst a few (foolish) people swim, one or two sunbathe and some walk, the mood a bit more low key for such a sunny day.

People are lapping up the Mr Whippy ice creams as usual though. Of course the van drove away before I was finished sketching it, but that's completely normal!


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