Welcome to the blog. On the this site you will find recent sketches right through to truely terrible sketches made on location over 20 years ago. Looking back at those sketches I sometimes wonder why I even continued with the practice! So why do I 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. Alon...
A sketch from late last year of a mighty Lada Niva spotted in Ponsonby. It’s not just a Niva, but the top line Cossack! There were loads of these blatting around New Zealand’s roads, farms and bush tracks in the 80’s and 90’s thanks to a trade deal between the Soviet Union and our Dairy Board where cars were received in trade for mutton and butter.
I got to drive them for work back in the day and the Niva was actually an awesome off-road machine. Although I did get one stuck twice in one day up the Whakatane River and Waioeka Gorge — I don't think they were really designed for some of the stupid stunts a young fella might attempt in the bush (when the boss isn't watching).
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