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...
This is a view of Bluff Hill, Napier as seen from the Masonic Hotel.
There are plenty of way better places to see Bluff Hill. Anywhere along Marine Parade would give you a better view, but this view over the top of the distinctive pastel green stucco of the Art Deco Napier building stood out to me.
I'd like to say it was a careful compositional application of the 'rule of thirds' or the balancing combination of warm and cool colours that drew me to this view, but I don't recall any of that entering my mind!
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