About viviennelingard

I am an artist and writer. I have been an an art teacher and as an illustrator of children's books. I love writing, whether fiction or non-fiction, and have written many short stories. I am also a keen reader and write book reviews, among other art related articles on my blog site – viviennelingard.net

Day Three: sketch challenge

Posted on March 13, 2020 by viviennelingard

graphite

Day Three, a late start. Travelling a little further from home to Brown’s Bay beach. Kerry had a dental examination, and told me I had ’15 minutes’ to get to the beach and do some sketching. Okay. I was onto it pronto, and practically sprinted to the grassed area beside the shore. A rain shower had just passed over and I spotted a woman with an umbrella walking. Out with the art gear. She was moving quite slowly down the beach and I tracked her with my pencil. Next a man and another woman walking the opposite direction. Not my best sketches ever, but hey, I got something down. Continue reading →

Day Two: sketch challenge

Posted on March 12, 2020 by viviennelingard

ink pen, aquarelle, graphite

Day two of my sketch 100 people challenge proved rather amusing. I set off walking swinging my art bag, after doing a quick pen sketch (above) from a photo. I was keen as mustard to get going. I had hoped to sketch a friend, but she wasn’t home. Okay; next on the plan was to visit the ferry building – always crowds of people there. Good idea, except the ferry had just departed. No commuters in sight. Right, there were a few visitors hanging about outside, so I pulled out my sketch pad and just managed to get one man in before he moved off. Oh, good, two people at the bus stop. Better than nothing I thought. Continue reading →

What did I do this for?

Posted on March 11, 2020 by viviennelingard

water-soluble graphite, aquarelle pencils, pen

I decided last week to take up the challenge of sketching 100 people in a week. Day one was Monday. It is now Tuesday, and I decided that I would write about this experience as I go. I first saw the challenge advertised on Suhita Shirodkar’s site and knew that she and many other sketchers had taken up the #oneweek100people# challenge a few times in the past. I thought ‘well, why not give it a go’. It would make me work fast, not allow me to get bogged down with too much detail, so I joined up to do this crazy thing. Continue reading →

Gaining perspective

Posted on March 5, 2020 by viviennelingard

Jetty. Pen, soluble graphite, watercolour

Last week in art class we did an exercise on one point perspective. We were to practice the rudiments of eye-level-line / horizon line, and the point to which other lines travel. In short, perspective drawing. The word perspective may intimidate new sketchers. But perspective is really just a word which suggests that there are different ways of looking. And as artists, that is the most important thing we can learn.

Continue reading →

If you are new to writing this might help

Posted on February 27, 2020 by viviennelingard

Writing_critique_group_small

It is some time since I wrote about critique groups (post March 2018), so thought you might like to read a more recent article I wrote for an independent publishing house on what new writers might expect from a critique group. I still belong to a writing group and continue to enjoy the process of having others read, listen to, and give feedback on my work. Writing can be a lonely occupation and it is good to mix with others who share similar interests. Continue reading →

More about Frida

Posted on February 20, 2020 by viviennelingard

Frida Kahlo, 1938/39 by Nickolas Muray

btr This exquisite photograph comes from a book I’ve owned since 2000. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, by Isabel Alcántara and Sandra Egnolff.

Even before I was gifted this book I had read much about Frida, and greatly admired the Mexican artist and her work. Her story is one of triumph over tragedy. Or maybe that should read ‘triumph through tragedy’, for Frida may not have become a painter if she hadn’t suffered a dreadful accident at the age of eighteen, which left her bedridden for long periods of time. Continue reading →

Alongside the writing …

Posted on February 13, 2020 by viviennelingard

My Studio

In the run up to the start of my travel-sketching class, I have been trying to complete a sketch a day. Drawing daily used to be effortless, but now, I seem to need more motivation to get started. I have managed to get some sketches done and thought I’d show that I can sometimes walk the talk. As I have a very nice room, set up for both writing and art, I thought I’d take objects I like and sketch them at the worktable in there. Continue reading →

My Brilliant Friend

Posted on February 6, 2020 by viviennelingard

smartcapture

I may have not read My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante if my friend Liz hadn’t passionately recommended it to me. I was down at the library to borrow it immediately. My reasons for haste were because I was going to stay with her in a couple of weeks and I wished to be prepared for the discussion about books and writing I knew we would have. Liz and I met as young teens, at school in the sixties, two clever but disaffected kids. Not unlike Lia and Lenù the main characters in Ferrante’s book, the first in her Neapolitan series, Book One: Childhood, Adolescence. Continue reading →

I didn’t want to visit Australia because of our sky

Posted on January 30, 2020 by viviennelingard

Auckland skies the week before leaving (photo not altered)

This was a long-planned trip to visit family in Australia but I was not filled with the usual mounting excitement. Our skies in Auckland reflected the awful reality of the fires burning over there, made all the more alarming given that New Zealand is over 3000 kilometres away. For days we had viewed flames ripping through communities in several parts of Australia, leaving utter devastation in their wake. And loss of life. Although we were heading north of the worst affected areas, there had been fires reported close to Toowoomba, near where my youngest lives. With assurances from her, that the area was quite safe apart from a smokey atmosphere, we flew to Brisbane, the closest International airport. Continue reading →

Just one small sketch …

Posted on January 14, 2020 by viviennelingard

Watercolour and pencil sketch

This post is going to be amazingly short for, as many of you will know, I have done nothing for weeks but write. However, last week, with the end of my draft in sight, I took a break to quickly sketch my Japanese-inspired bowl. Continue reading →

It looks like art is on the agenda

Posted on January 3, 2020 by viviennelingard

smartcapture

Art appears to be on my agenda this year, thanks in the main to Tony McNeight who runs sketch groups locally. In the past I have dipped in and out of these classes when time allows and he is amenable to my dropping in. The watercolour and pencil sketch above was done, when I joined a Saturday class at the local Ngataringa Community Gardens for a sketch session and Christmas wind-up. I made an early New Years’ pledge that day to join his classes for a term. I start mid-February. My intentions to sketch regularly did not reach the mark in 2019. Let’s hope I do better in 2020.

For the record, I am on track with my writing, and am pleased about completing my most hefty resolution from last year. Apart from seeing the book come into being, the other resolutions for this year are to finish as many unfinished projects as I can. I am always impressed by the work I see others on-line achieve; so please keep blogging about your art, travel and writing, as you all give me inspiration.

Happy New Year.

Down Under at Christmas

Posted on December 20, 2019 by viviennelingard

rhdr

While out on my usual morning constitutional, I came across this house adorned ready for Christmas. How crazy I thought, as our Pohutukawa blooms and locals are heading to the beaches, that so many of us ‘grownups’ in New Zealand still treasure this chubby fellow from the North Pole. Look at him, abseiling, climbing a ladder, and parachuting in. I only hoped his presents weren’t melting in the sack. I tucked my phone in my pocket and kept walking, on the hunt to see if there were more interlopers from the North Pole around. Continue reading →

If I hadn’t been keeping to my deadline, I would have…

Posted on December 12, 2019 by viviennelingard

My sister Kath, Dad and me

I would have written more posts of an arty nature if I hadn’t been so busy keeping to a different kind of writing deadline. For those new to my posts, I began a story about my father a couple of years back and I was never diligent in keeping to the schedules I set myself. Well, finally I decided that enough was enough (see my post, Deadlines, Oct 25th). Yes, it’s true, an amazing thing, for I have been keeping to that self-set deadline, of finishing the draft of a novel by mid-January. I have found the going sluggish at times, not with the writing itself, but with the research and detail I need to keep this story authentic. Continue reading →

Feeling Lucky

Posted on December 5, 2019 by viviennelingard

rhdr

It is two years since we moved to our apartment in Devonport, a village at the end of a peninsular across from Auckland, where ferries, tankers, cruise ships and yachts fill the watery divide. It is a moving spectacle. Daily, I look out at the scene thinking how lucky I am to be living here. I am also lucky to have met the people I have since arriving. On Sunday 1st December we held an early Christmas party, as is our custom, and invited many of them to our home, plus others we have known a long time. Continue reading →

Passing it forward

Posted on November 25, 2019 by viviennelingard

As Christmas approaches, I attend to jobs that need finishing in order for me to complete my gift-giving. My sewing machine had long needed a service; it’s almost as old as me. But even old things can still be good (yeah!), and my machine is a good example. What stories it could tell… from sewing baby clothes to teenagers’ dresses, to shorts and shirts for my son, until he learned to sew on my machine and made baggy shorts for himself, and covers for his surfboard. Continue reading →

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Vivienne Lingard talking about books, writing, travel, art and craft

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