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...
Our youngest had been badgering me to take him to MOTAT for ages. It's
such a great place for sketching that I caved in easily – not that he
had any plans for me to stop and sketch for more than about five
minutes. Sketching with kids is more like a speed event where you dash
the linework down and if you're lucky splash a bit of colour on the
page.
In the end it was a toss-up between sketching the Short Solent and the Lancaster bomber, both impressive beasts. It's bizarre to look into the tiny tail turret of the Lancaster and imagine my old colleague Denis freezing his proverbials off while being shot at over 3 tours of Europe during the war. Those guys were seriously brave.
I decided on the Solent because I could include the Transavia Airtruck (on the right), the Australian designed, kiwi built top dresser which is shaped like a flying flea.
The Short Solent Aranui has an interesting and much more fun history — run by TEAL (Tasman Empire Airways Limited) it originally flew between Mechanics Bay, Auckland and Rose Bay, Sydney. We're talking pre-harbour bridge days here — it would have used a LOT of the harbour as it's runway!
Once land based planes took over the Sydney route Aranui flew the 'Coral Route' — that's Auckland to Fiji, onward to Samoa, then the Cook Islands (landing at Aitutaki not Rarotonga), next stop would have been Tonga and finally Tahiti — about 20 odd hours in total. Now that would be a superb way to fly to the islands!
In the end it was a toss-up between sketching the Short Solent and the Lancaster bomber, both impressive beasts. It's bizarre to look into the tiny tail turret of the Lancaster and imagine my old colleague Denis freezing his proverbials off while being shot at over 3 tours of Europe during the war. Those guys were seriously brave.
I decided on the Solent because I could include the Transavia Airtruck (on the right), the Australian designed, kiwi built top dresser which is shaped like a flying flea.
The Short Solent Aranui has an interesting and much more fun history — run by TEAL (Tasman Empire Airways Limited) it originally flew between Mechanics Bay, Auckland and Rose Bay, Sydney. We're talking pre-harbour bridge days here — it would have used a LOT of the harbour as it's runway!
Once land based planes took over the Sydney route Aranui flew the 'Coral Route' — that's Auckland to Fiji, onward to Samoa, then the Cook Islands (landing at Aitutaki not Rarotonga), next stop would have been Tonga and finally Tahiti — about 20 odd hours in total. Now that would be a superb way to fly to the islands!
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