“Hello, I have just seen your web site and I notice that you lived in Suffolk, so did I. ( I live in France now ) Do you have any cards of paintings from there for my friends? Shuna. New Zealand”
I have always wished to visit New Zealand since my favourite primary school teacher retired there, praising the fishing etc!
We chatted a while on the internet, then on the phone, and somehow I soon found myself booking a flight and talking to all sorts of fun people and her friends on the computer, - anglers, galleries, and artists.
I decided to only take Acrylics, Watercolours and Unison Pastels. I had to be far more careful about the weight limits on this trip! Over thirty hours of travelling with my bad back, not something I looked forward to, with some quite long stops in between flights. I took my portable C.D. for such things and found it very useful. Eventually I was on the last leg, a tatty, small two engine plane, with plenty of character, as did the pilots and hostess. I was allowed to take a photo from the cockpit, and had wonderful views of the countryside, mountains and rivers as we flew from Auckland to Palmerston North, on North Island. I was tired, but not too bad due to the good service provided by Malaysian airways But all that aside, here was Shuna, and everyone around me in T shirts, shorts, suntanned and healthy looking! A short drive and we were in her modern and well equipped home, and I was introduced to her two cats, her babies. Well if you are a single man this will tell you a lot. Shuna has always been single, is very independent, a midwife, and a hell of a character very interested in the arts and a gifted fabric artist. Suddenly she is invaded by another being, not just any being or other single lady, but a hairy bohemian artist alien! It took her a lot to get used to someone, anyone in her home, and we had many tense and also many hilarious moments as I was ordered to wear the marigolds and dust, drive, cook, mend things. We gradually came to an acceptable compromise and the dusting was out!
In my second evening we took a sunset drive into the local hills to Tokomaru. Quite a difference from the snow scenes of Norway I was painting only a few days before, I could have been in England. In fact the countryside turned out to be extremely varied, and in the late summer weather I was astounded by the beauty of giant tree ferns in jungle like woods, scenes reminiscent of Scotland, volcanic mountains and steaming hot mud, tropical blue seas, and lakes that could have been in Switzerland. The people were friendly and the atmosphere wonderful, - I mean they still serve you at petrol pumps, and drive on the left!
The sounds were very different, and although many species of bird and animals had been introduced from this country such as sparrows, rabbits and starlings, as I warmed up on that sunset in watercolour and pastel I was suddenly plunged into the film Jurassic Park. I was reminded of a part where a cute little dinosaur called cheerily at an actor, and then pounced and ate him! An almost identical noise was coming from a pair of animals nearby. Bell birds, Shuna said. Yep, fine I
thought, as the light faded and I completed a little quicker. In fact the whole thing took about fifteen minutes.
A few days later, we were ready for the first major trip, one of two to Lake Taupo. This is one of the largest lakes in the world, is the top of a volcano and holds some very big trout, something else I was into meeting this holiday! We were staying at a local lodge specialising for the anglers with the river and lake nearby. Lovely settings and Murray and Robin Parkinson, our guides and hosts, made us most welcome, even taking me out after trout in his boat. Time was short on this visit, and I only had a chance to take photos and do one painting of the river Tongariro as local Maori lads enjoyed swimming from an island. The clouds were moving quickly, so I had to work equally fast! On the whole, skies were always impressive over there.Our return journey took us past several bigmountains including a volcano which was
used by winter skiers and had chair lifts working, even then. We took a trip up into the clouds and discovered the most wonderful rock formations with a rich variety of different warm earth colours, golds, umbers, siennas, ochres. Half way down the view was clear at Whakapapa and we decided to take time to sit and enjoy. I had my Ingres
pastel pad, so did a quick study of the valley below. Hard without anything to scale to, but used the foreground rocks as a key. Driving back down the mountain past “Beware of Kiwi” signs we returned to a scene reminiscent of a Scottish salmon river. By perching behind the road barrier on the bend I had a good composition, which also proves the point that it does not matter about copying what is there, it is what is in the picture that counts. Constable was quite happy to move trees thirty yards to one side to get the composition he liked! Mind you I almost fell over when a minibus full of students roared past and gave a friendly blast of the horn. It reminded me a bit of an event when painting in Scotland last year, a lovely quiet scene of a stone bridge over the river. Then an entire bus of senior citizens saw me and drove into the field! They all piled out to have a chat, — not easy as you are concentrating on laying first sky washes.
In this painting of the New Zealand river I was using a light and lively approach to the tumbling waters, in water colour only, in order to play that off against the heavier background and sky.
My creative urges were certainly warming up, and Shuna loves to go hiking, or tramping they call it over there. One wonders what they call vagrants, who might be worried by such events? I cannot manage long walks, but do like a stroll, so we took a trip up to an old disused copper mine trail. I was very impressed. A jungle straight from the prehistoric world, of tree ferns, vines, palms, all carpeting this ascending valley! The trail was like something from Raiders of the Lost Ark. It became a narrow cliff path clinging to the side of the valley, opening up in places to give spectacular views and entering green sunlit tunnels in between. The weather was sweltering and I needed my straw for protection. Such was the sun that my dark deck shoes became extremely hot! I had taken a small cooler box with my tins of drink, food as well as water and my materials inside.
The promise of an easel had fallen through, but a local antiques dealer kindly loaned me a child’s black board easel for my stay! I started my first major work with a big watercolour pastel on hot pressed Arches 140lb, stretched. The scene was very complex with masses of trees and similar greens, and no close foreground , as the cliff dropped away directly below me! Shuna had continued off, chasing one of her tramps in the meantime, but returned just as I finished. I tend to know how long a work will be now, in this case about three hours. She wished to try a watercolour and I wished to do some of the jungle stuff, so we packed up and moved into the shade of the tunnel. I worked with a medium charcoal pencil, then watercolour and finished with a little pastel on 140lb Bockingford, unstretched. She also finished a pleasing little first work about leaf forms which would link very well with her fabric skills later.
Shuna had a lot to do, so I decided to give her space by taking my fishing rod, art materials and being dropped off at the river for the morning. Once again the light was moving quickly and the place had an impressionist feel to it with sparkling shallows and twinkling highlights. I produced another watercolour with pastel worked onto it.
I had been told about Foxton beach where masses of old trees were washed up, in pictures it looked like some graveyard of logs! Shuna thought it would make a good day out, she had a tennis lesson later that day, but I often work better under pressure. I had a good look around, decided on my composition, we had a picnic and then I set up and battled into the work with the medium charcoal pencil. It was ideal to almost sculpt out the forms. The day was rather dull, but with delicate colours, even over thesilver logs. I rapidly painted watercolour over the whole work as Shuna reminded me I only had an hour! Using the pastels gently at first I was able to scumble the sand and sky softly up, becoming bolderas I worked and then became aggressive again with the pencil as Shuna said we had to go. I felt I was getting somewhere at last!
I like animals and new challenges (and Shuna certainly was one) so when she asked me to help the Nassus Animal Refuge I was quit happy. I decided to do a large composite of the inmates and then donate it for auction. We popped down and took a film of as broad a spectrum as possible from which I then laid the prints out into the composition. Starting with a pencil drawing on stretched 140lb. Arches hot pressed paper, I moved onto a basic watercolour, which enabled me to link the background washes. I then worked up the main tones in Unisons, finishing with pastel pencils. In the second part to this article we shall take a visit to a wonderful piece of coastline and seascapes, also back to Lake Taupo and finally to Mount Taranaki.
