Still Sketching

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The other morning I walked up a nearby street to where it reached the top of the hill, and opened out on to a view across the racecourse to the mountain.

 

On the corner of the street there was a house I had never seen before from this angle.

 

It had recently had a hedge of large trees above a crumbling, ancient concrete wall removed, and the wall replaced by a row of ponga stems.

 

Here, then,  was a perfect subject for an original sketch.

 

 

On a wetter day, I found an advertisement in a Country Life magazine lent us by friends, and decided to try copying it.

 

This is a mansion in South Wales.

 

My effort has a few things I would do differently next time, but here it is.

 

On a slightly more pleasant day, but with the clouds gradually getting thicker and the wind rising, I drove down to the beach, and spent a vigorous hour walking, talking to people I met, and gathering a bag of kelp for the compost heap.

 

Then I sat in the car, with the rain threatening, and sketched the view to the west.

 

Last Friday we had our U3A Sketching Group meeting.

 

We gathered at a café called "Espresso", overlooking the Huatoki Plaza in the centre of the town.

 

There were five of us: some sat on the balcony you can see in my sketch below, others, like me, moved to the seats in the Plaza and sketched the buildings.

 

We were doing an exercise from our "text-book": concentrating on capturing the light and shade on the buildings we could see.

 

Immediately below the balcony is the Huatoki River. On the left bank, where the café now sits, was the original railway line to the old New Plymouth Railway Station which stood a few metres downstream right on the edge of the sea, near where the Wind Wand now stands. That is why you can make out a railway engine painting on the wall of the basement of the café underneath the balcony!

 

And there are figures painted on the end wall of the balcony. But the best thing about the café is that they serve the most delicious savoury muffins to have with one's coffee! Altogether an enjoyable morning.