Tag Archives: lessons learned

The best laid plans for a short southern sojourn

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The delightful town of Kaikoura

Kerry and I booked a short but interesting trip to Kaikōura, as part of a Great Journeys NZ trip. This included: a train ride, an overnight stay in a nice hotel, a dolphin excursion (or whale, or albatross watching), and a return train ride from Christchurch. We flew from Auckland to Christchurch, stayed overnight in an hotel, and with some excitement grabbed a taxi early next morning and headed to the station to catch a north-bound train, as Kaikōura is in the North Canterbury region in the South Island. We lugged our bags into the crowded station, went over to the ticket office, and after a quick exchange with the staff, found that our train had departed … Let me gloss over that part and leave you to fill in the dots any way you wish.

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Well, there is a little progress

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Original rough, left side of double page spread

Last time I talked about my memoir with pictures, I showed a few pencil sketches of some pages I had nutted out. I have now sketched more pages, attempting to make a storyboard of the tales I wished to tell, or portray. This bit was easy. I love sketching in pencil and plotting scenarios based on my experiences when young, that was no trouble what so ever.

I studied other graphic novels to get a feel with how I wanted mine to look: a mixture of double pages in colour or black and white, and several pages with smaller images, as you might see in a comic, with speech bubbles etc., But then, I decided I should do at least one trial page in full colour as I imagined the larger pages should look. But, what medium to use?

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Back to the memoir in pictures

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You may have thought I’d never get going on this idea of a memoir of me as a youngster. True, I didn’t get far, but there were other things I had to do. But now I have looked through my initial rough sketches, and have decided to show them to you, I feel it is a small start. My plan, from here on in, is to complete a couple of images in colour on good paper, using watercolour and pencil, as a trial for the finished product. Today however, it’s just more pencil roughs. Except for the photo of me, left, taken on a Brownie camera in the 1950’s. Yes, I’m that old.

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A bit of this and that, or a memoir in pictures

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Possible wrap around cover featuring ME!

This week I started in on some pencil roughs intended for the future graphic novel. Everything is guesswork on my part, completely experiential, as it’s the first time I’ve embarked upon this genre. Over the months I have picked up and examined many graphic novels, by women, mostly. This has been such an interesting exercise, as they are so different from each other and all brilliant.

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Things that fall

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Final image

I’ve spoken often about how I love to go walking in my neighbourhood, and I didn’t let the previous night’s storm put me off. It was still blowing furiously yesterday when I took off, cap on under my red jacket hood. Sunglasses too, to keep the wind and salt air out. The debris on the footpath had me stop at the end of the block, and there I stooped to uplift a fine collection of fallen goods. I picked up a large leaf, (from a magnolia I guessed), two small pōhutukawa leaves sporting radiant autumn colours, a seed of some sort and a small feijoa. Feijoas are loved and disliked in equal number here. I love them. To eat, one should slice them in half and scoop out the middle with a teaspoon, But this fallen delicacy was way too small to eat.

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A lull in proceedings

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For all my excitement about my new novel, and tripping about to speak at book stores etc., I admit the busyness over the past few weeks has seen me flop on my bed for ‘Nana Naps’ most afternoons, my thoughts of sketching lost in dreams.

However, I woke feeling fresh this morning (ye ha!) and made a start on sketching three small figs on a saucer, before taking off to walk by the sea. So lovely with the hint of autumn in the air and tui going crazy in the trees.

My batteries were re-charged.

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The things we do

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It’s been a very busy time with family staying (there were many spread over the weeks), and me working on promotional material for my novel throughout to meet the publicist’s deadlines. But there were nice moments, like drinking Prosecco on the patio with family. It was a brother-in-law who spotted the clay forms clumped on the outside table, and said “what are these?” “You may well ask? I replied. “I made them years ago, as part of my teaching degree.” I was a late starter regarding my education, and began this, my first degree, at fifty. And although I had been tutoring art to adult students for years before this, I decided to give academia a go.

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No final painting but there is this

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La Femme au Bain by René-Xavier Prinet, around 1888

The final class was cut short, as we were to be given a talk about the painting by Charles Goldie, which is where the classes began. To recap, we were handed a copy of the painting and were asked to copy it. But what I never realised until this talk was, that Goldie had copied his La Femme au Bain, from an original, for on the bottom of the painting it reads ‘after’ René-Xavier Prinet. Both artists studied at the Académie Julian in Paris around the same time. So, I had made a copy of a copy. I didn’t know what to think. I guess seeing both men could certainly paint, I must have learned something through close observation.

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From sketch to canvas process

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Continuing on from last week, when I showed you the charcoal sketch (see above) which I would be transposing onto an A2canvas. As I am going to take you through that process I thought it would help to include it here as this is the pose I shall continue to work from.

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The last stages

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I worked a little on the painting yesterday, and this is the image here. I left it to dry overnight and returned to it today.

I will work on it a little tomorrow and hopefully it will be done.

I should have waited until the paint had dried to take the photo as every brush stroke is laid bare (unintentional pun).

I have decided to trim the image and focus on the model and not include the barely discernible chair at the periphery of the scene in the original. I think this format works better in my view.

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