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...
 |
| Quechua ladies and their babies |
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. |
Comments