Monthly Archives: December 2022

A significant sketch

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Metrosideros ‘Tahiti’

The significance is that the Pōhutukawa (Metrosideros), with its showy scarlet flowers around Christmas, has since shed those beautiful blooms to the wind. The Pōhutukawa comes in many forms and sizes, and it was the shrub I came across in my relatives’ garden which took my fancy on Boxing Day. This was the Pōhutukawa (Metrosideros ‘Tahiti’), a compact shrub approximately 1m x 1m with its yellow flower stalks and the soft sage green of the young leaves I thought delightful. Well, to this artist’s eyes at least. I had an immediate desire to draw it, and trimmed off a piece of branch with a pair of secateurs (with permission from said relatives).

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Ninja’s take on Christmas

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Apologies for my lack of posting recently. Not yet back to my old self, although I have aged a year since I last wrote. So, maybe that should read, I am now my older self. I would like to introduce you to another family member – Ninja. My tabby Ninja is a delightful, and self-willed cat, but a great subject to help me out at this moment. I imagined that I could set up a great photo shoot where he meets Father Christmas and here is his reaction! Gee, thanks Ninja.

Despite Ninja’s disdain for this festive chap, I would still like to send you my very best wishes for the Christmas period. Here, in New Zealand we begin December 25th before anyone else, and shall be welcoming in the day approximately twelve hours from now! I hope that Christmas finds you in good health. And happy sketching to all those artists out there. Vivienne.

Have you ever sketched a stone?

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Last post, I talked about the Heide art museum and Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture. One piece, sculpted from stone had instant appeal to me. While examining it from all sides, and peering into the carved out holes, I decided I would like to draw it once I was back home. Why draw a stone? I hear you ask, and the answer for me is simple. I love drawing texture. I would have liked to sketch in the museum, but that was not possible, so, the next best thing was to take a photograph, knowing I could work from it later. Little did I realise at the time, that I was going to be stuck indoors as Covid came to visit, and thus my promise to draw the Hepworth came to pass.

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Meeting Barbara at Heide

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Photograph by Jeremy Weihrauch of the new face of the Heide Museum of Modern Art

I was excited when invited to visit an art gallery in Melbourne I had visited before. The Heide Museum of Modern Art specialises in modern art and sculpture, is quite unlike others, and one I never tire of visiting. It is in Bulleen, a suburb of Melbourne, and was established in 1981 by art benefactors John and Sunday Reed. Thanks to their ideas and inspiration, the museum is a superb asset to the city, and sits well with the other, larger art galleries in the city centre. I was especially excited to visit this day, as they were featuring an exhibition of Barbara Hepworth sculpture. Hepworth is a British modernist artist and sculptor (1903-1975). > Barbara Hepworth

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