Why sketch?

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...

New Zealand's most interesting car?






Another unfinished sketch from the Southward museum down on the Kapiti coast. That place is amazing (even for non-car nuts). I'd only read about these Czech beasts previously so it was pretty cool to see one in the flesh. The world's first aero designed car, with an air-cooled 3 litre V8 sitting off the back of the rear axle they could get along at over 150 kph which isn't bad for 1936.

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