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...
My attempts to capture the Elite Woman's cycle leg during the first leg of the World Triathlon champs.
I had strategically positioned myself at the top of the climb on Victoria Street as I figured they would be going their slowest here and would be easier to draw, wishful thinking though because these girls were absolutely flying up the hill. My sketches ended up looking more like blind contour drawings as I tried to get them down on paper.
At this stage of the race two kiwis, Nicky Samuels and Kate McIlroy were leading a breakaway bunch of 3 which included the eventual winner, Jodie Stimpson from Great Britain.
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