Zen and the art of motorcycles 2

My partner is restoring a 90's dirt bike and I am finding the process very inspiring.  There are some challenges to capturing the fast moving processes in the garage, but also opportunities to study muddy, intricate mechanical parts.  

Some of my previous explorations in mixed media have come in very handy, allowing me to layer, collage and use opaque media (gouache) to build the image.

Spray painting the bike frame, the fumes were all encompassing.  Waiting for the action to start gave me opportunity to explore the clutter that accumulates around the restoration process in the garage.

I "borrowed" the carburettor and sketched it like I would a building.

Back to the action.  Here I was drawing the motor as it was being cleaned, which meant it had to change positions fairly often.  I decided to carry on with my lines through the movement.  So rather than an exact sketch of the motor, it is an amalgamation of the things I saw as I drew.
Then I experimented with gouache marks to represent the different parts on the smaller sketch.

And this is where the project has led me so far - utilising lots of my mixed media tricks!

The collage elements were drawn from life on scraps of scrapbook paper on one of my many trips to the music store with my partner - another of his hobbies that I find inspiring.  I already had them stuck to the sketchbook page, so I drew the brake parts straight over top.  Selected areas of gouache to pick out details and splattered watercolour for the years of mud and grime!

Shelley (May 2019)

Drawing the news

An interesting lunchtime excursion to TVNZ last week to see Peter Williams read the midday news live in the studio. A really interesting experience to see how the news comes together. That guy is a pro isn't he! 15 minutes sketching in the studio with colour added later.

Netball action

Both of our girls are netballers so that means two trips to the Mt Wellington Netball Centre every week.  The weather is usually horrendous – that's just standard – and netball is only cancelled for electrical storms. I optimistically take the little A6 Moleskine and a pencil just in case my digits aren't frozen enough to sketch with.

 

Harbour Bridge Bungy

Excited and just a little terrified?

That old saying 'If someone said jump off the harbour bridge, would you do it?' was echoing in my mind recently when some friends asked me to join them on the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Dhani had been married the day before and the idea was to surprise him with a compulsory bungy jump.

The walk is a lot of fun, you see the workings of the bridge up close, and eventually climb up to a specially designed pod attached under the highest part of the bridge. The pod is constructed of tubular pipes and stretched aluminium panels so looks more like the fuselage of a Catalina flying boat than some adrenalin junkies jump off point.

Once on board you're surrounded by bungy cords, carabiners, ropes, tv monitors, emergency paraphernalia, spotlights, speakers, a sub woofer while cameras catch you at your most vulnerable. All that's left is a couple of gung-ho adventure operators with faux tribal tattoos. A switch is then flicked and the whole side of the place opens out so jumpers can see first hand what terrifying heights they're about to jump from. On the day Dhani was more than happy to make the jump, grinning ear to ear and diving off head first to take out top points for style.

I was just happy to tag along with the sketchbook and see if I could get it all down on paper. The views are amazing of course, with Birkenhead, the Birkenhead ferry visible through the steel structure, and luckily I had just enough time to sketch him on his way out the door...

Out you go Dhani

Rescuing migrants at sea on board HMS Bulwark

Excerpt from a guest post by Dan Peterson on Urban Sketchers

"I joined HMS Bulwark in Malta on the 15th June. The ship’s crew were getting ready to return to sea after a few days respite following their largest rescue of 1200 migrants in the Mediterranean just the week before. I was on board to observe and record, using illustration. Bulwark’s current mission, known as Op WEALD, is the UK's contribution to SOLAS (Saving Of Life At Sea) Operations."

Read more here...

Dan Peterson is a freelance illustrator based in Cardiff, Wales. As one of the editors of the main USk site, we are involved with attempting to bring timely news articles to our readers attention. I was delighted when Dan agreed to supply the first of his posts based on his experiences on board HMS Bulwark - both timely and newsworthy! Read the full post here.

Return of the Gallery in Taranaki

The re-opening of the Govett Brewster Art Gallery, including the new stainless steel Len Lye Centre. They closed the streets around the building for the opening ceremony (but mostly so that everyone could get photos and selfies in the mirrored steel outer surface). The White Hart Hotel, one of New Plymouth's oldest buildings, is an interesting neighbour for it. The old and the new, both very challenging to sketch. The White Hart just has so much detail. If you don't draw it all, when do you stop? And the Len Lye Centre, is just plain weird. It's like trying to draw a Photoshop filter. I sat on the step across the street for several hours while trying to figure out where it all goes.
#LenLye #LenLyeCentreOpening

Local character turned early morning takeaways

In a move that adds new meaning to the old saying 'There goes the neighbourhood', some of the old houses in my area are actually being driven off down the road.

In this case a 100+ year old Victorian 'corner angle bay' villa was cut into 3 parts, jacked up onto 3 hydraulic trailers then taken away in the dead of night.

The old place is apparently destined for a country plot somewhere up north. This is great of course – at least it isn't being demolished – but the continued removal, destruction and replacement with concrete tilt slab apartment blocks is changing the local character forever.

It was quite fascinating to follow the process. First of all they disconnected the power lines from the street. Then the foundations were carefully dismantled and these clever hydraulic truck trailers
(a sort of Chev Impala lowrider re-interpretation of a Kenworth trailer) are positioned underneath. The chimneys are dismantled, and away they go – in the middle of the night of course – because you can't go driving houses around in peak hour traffic can you.

I'm aware of several other old villas around the corner set to go also (view the sketch here). I wonder if this is something happening across the country, or is it just the character inner city suburbs of Auckland like Ponsonby and Grey Lynn?

Do you, like me, think it's strange that most of our heritage buildings have no historic rating or protection at all?

ITU World Triathlon Championships 2014

My attempts to capture the Elite Woman's cycle leg during the first leg of the World Triathlon champs.

I had strategically positioned myself at the top of the climb on Victoria Street as I figured they would be going their slowest here and would be easier to draw, wishful thinking though because these girls were absolutely flying up the hill. My sketches ended up looking more like blind contour drawings as I tried to get them down on paper.

At this stage of the race two kiwis, Nicky Samuels and Kate McIlroy were leading a breakaway bunch of 3 which included the eventual winner, Jodie Stimpson from Great Britain.