Occasionally Auckland Sketchbook escapes the city to somewhere interesting — and close. This time the sketchbook got a workout in The Bay of Islands . Only 3.5 hours by car and a world away from work. The sketch above was made in down-town Paihia, it doesn't look it, but it is literally behind the main street. The view is the back of an old homestead called Williams House . I was attracted by the orchard of very old fig trees on the left that had me imagining eating juicy ripe figs. Sadly they weren't in season but it must be a fun place at harvest time. Right over the other side of the bay you will find his falling down old house on Matauwhi Bay. For a while there the water had a turquoise glow until the sun went into hiding. This is Pompallier House and Clendon Cottage in Russell sketched with my back to the sea. I may have used a little too much artistic licence in moving them close enough together to fit on my page so don't look too closely. Anyway, I have sketched Po...
Here are some old cottage sketches from our Akaroa trip over Easter - if it's one thing Akaroa does well it's old houses! This first house below - the Langlois-Eteveneux cottage is one of the original French cottages and was pre-fabricated in France then shipped out. It certainly does have a slightly different look and construction to most of the other cottages in town.
This cottage below got the better of my landscape sketchbook - I had to crop the roof off so it could fit nicely. The street names are a legacy of the early French settlement in Akaroa, this one is on Rue Jolie...
Obviously the building below isn't a cottage at all! Pretty neat though. It's the Old Shipping Office (presumably that means there's a new one somewhere?) and like a lot of early NZ commercial buildings it's constructed of timber to look like stone even down to the turned balustrades and wooden keystone at the top.
This one at the top of Rue Jolie has flowering nikau palms and awesome harbour views...
This one is on the not so French sounding William Street...
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