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...
The unusual fort is on the cliff side near Narrow Neck on the North Shore. It's actually below ground level, so the trick for me in this sketch is to try to get that feeling of the building being in a great big hole! I'm not sure if it quite does that though.
It was originally built to defend Auckland against the Russians way back on the 1890's. Apparently there were a bunch of these built around the country, but most of them have long been demolished. As well as a number of smaller guns, there were two large guns in the cliff front from which this connected main building could supply a steady stream of ammunition. All designed to protect the Rangitoto Channel (that's Rangitoto Island in the distance) from advancing Russian vessels. Thankfully they were never actually needed!
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