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...
Not a fun day to try sketching the Smith & Caughey building on the corner of Elliot and Wellesley Streets.
A freezing southerly was blowing through spreading drops of rain across my page and washing out my line. Cold fingers and smudgy raindrops ruined my first attempt at a 'nice' sketch, so with any thoughts of doing a tidy sketch gone I ripped into this second version, drawing really fast and loose, partly in an attempt to keep warm.
In some ways I think the of sketch has more character, even though the perspective and proportions are way out of wack!
The sculpture in the foreground is Russell Clark's 'The Matahorua and Tainui Anchors'
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