It began many years back, when I was was helping a ten-year-old with ideas for a story. In a nutshell, her ideas fed mine, and set me thinking of my own story for children. This would of course be an illustrated story, done by yours truly. After writing many drafts, I decided on creating the first illustration; something that might work for the cover. Apart from the grandfather, who features in the story, the drawing above features all the other main characters in The Lost Civilisation. From top left, clockwise; the parrot Herakles, Penelope, Achilles the dog, Helen of Troy, the cat, and Archimedes, the goldfish, all named after figures in Greek mythology.
I’m still on the botanical track – sorry, if you were thinking I’d written a Mills and Boon style romance – although the passionfruit flower I’ve sketched is as beautiful to look at as its fruit is to eat. This particular plant was thriving a couple of years ago on a wall in my relative’s garden, and thinking it would make a great drawing I took a photo of a flower and the fruit. Alas, the plant shrivelled and died in the heat the following summer. So, I guess my sketch is a kind of memorial to that luscious passionfruit vine which died prematurely. I could have sketched this in one sitting, but decided that I’d like to take it slowly. I sketched it in three short sessions, spread out over three days, as family were visiting.
Final session
I continually sharpened my pencils and kept changing from one tone of green, or purple, to achieve the desired effects. While drawing the initial sketch I wondered how I could show the delicate white tendrils so they would show against the darker background of leaves. This was a good time to leave it alone. On return I began fleshing out the foliage and used an olive green, apple green, and a lemon cadmium for highlights. For the stamens, I used dark violet and magenta. Picking out the edges was tricky, as I wished to keep their delicate appearance, yet I needed to add depth of tone in the line, in order to have the stamens show against the green.
I applied more colour to the foliage, yet left the sketch loose around the outside, so the flower would remain the focal interest.
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).
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.
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.
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
I feel a bit guilty, not having posted for some time, but not having the sanctity of my study nearby did that to me. And travel. I’ve been back a couple of days from a trip to Tasmania and Melbourne, Australia. Tasmania was new to Kerry and I, but not Melbourne, as we have visited often because of family and friends who call it home. The whole trip was eclectic, including the changes in weather and temperatures. Looking at different land forms, buildings, creatures and art. I still feel a little unsettled, but let me begin with some art that we saw.
I’ve been biking in Central Otago again, undoubtably one of the most picturesque areas in New Zealand. It has a multitude of walking and biking tracks, if that’s your thing. And biking is a thing for my in-laws and me (to a lesser extent). Or, maybe I should rephrase that to the less brave. I was down here almost two years back with Kerry, to ride part of three tracks: the Rail Trail, The Roxburgh Gorge and The Dunstan Track, some of which we were about to repeat, but rather differently as it turned out. That’s me above, on the Roxburgh Gorge Trail last week.
Some months back, when writing about my newly published short story collection, l promised to post any good reviews. I did receive a very good one last month, but it was in a newspaper and difficult to copy clearly. However, much to my surprise, another very positive review appeared last Friday in a website Booklovers. Chris Reed reviewed the collection, and what he said brought tears to my eyes – of joy. So, I would love to write about something joyous, when often there seems little to be joyous about (I’m talking World News here). I had to trim the page for a screen shot, but have included the link for the full read below.
Nine weeks of life-drawing sessions have gone by in a flash and mostly my experiences were happy ones. I had hoped that we would repeat the charcoal (outside in) method of shaping the figure (see August 4 post), but no. I’m showing a few sketches I quite like from the last two classes. There are always reservations to what could have been done better, or differently, and the five images below show different mediums and time taken for various poses.
15 minute sketch: 6B graphite with diluted black ink/water wash on Hahnemuhle paper.
This seated pose came after a raft of fast ink sketches using a thick brush on newsprint, which I DO NOT enjoy doing. I was pleased when the longer poses came, and I switched to a lovely cream 140g Hahnemuhle paper, which works well with many drawing mediums and handles a light wash well.
ARTISTRY 