Mainly houses

Sketching Update

Most of my sketching from life the past few days has been of houses in the immediate neighbourhood, in the course of my daily walks.

The winter weather has been fine and pleasant for a stroll most days.

Continuing the theme of the lat post, here (right) is another view of Wharepapa. I was further down the end of Lemon Street, at the corner of Pukenui Street, looking back to Fort Niger.

Another day, heading along Pendarves Street towards Fort Niger Reserve, I stopped to sketch these two contrasting houses.

In the foreground is a brand-new spec house in a modern style.

Behind it, higher up the hill, is a much older building, also white, to contrast with it.

In Watson Street, just round the corner, is this older villa, late nineteenth century. It looks a bit tired these days, but when we shifted in to this house here in Lemon Street, the former owner of this Watson St house, a retired builder, came to our garage sale and spent a while chatting about our new home and its history.

Half-way from here to Pukenui Street and the view sketched at the top of this post is this older cottage. When we lived in this neighbourhood in the early eighties it was owned by a couple of acquaintances, but since then it has been badly neglected, as I hope my charcoal sketch shows.

On the odd days when the weather has not co-operated, I have worked in other media: this vase of daphne was on the table, so I took out my pastels and tried to get it on to the paper.

Another day I took out an old book about the Greek islands and did a water-colour version of a photo of one of the harbours in Crete (below).

We even had a second wet day, so I looked at our travel photos again: here is my watercolour of the youth hostel we stayed in near St Paul's Cathedral, with yours truly about to knock on the front door!