A New Blog; Life drawing class

I have started a new blog showing the efforts of our local life drawing class which I run every Wednesday evening during the school term in the Waihi College drama room.
The class is a mixture of ages and experience, from absolute beginners learning to draw to experienced artists who are happy to have a model available for practice or creating new works based on the human form.

A Sculptor lives next door

Trevor next door works in stone and bone and his partner Pam is a painter, mural artist and graphic artist like me.
Trevor has three commissioned tombstones on the go at the moment and Pam helps him sometimes with design drawings and I have occasionally helped Trevor with aspects of portrait design drawings and enlargement of design drawings for carvings.
Like mural and portrait commissions can often be, these tombstone commissions are very personal and close to a clients heart.
The privilege of trust and the pleasure of helping someone is often part of living the life of an artist.

One for Bernie Krausse, Fantails in the house

In the indigenous cosmology (read: local Maori legends..) Fantails inside the house herald messages from the Ancestors. Fantails are extremely aerobatic and catch minute insects on the wing, mosquitos, fruit flies, midges etc. and in the bush fly close around people to everyones delight and chirp away gaily but they are not being friendly it's just that the stink of human beings attracts tiny insects and the fantails come round for a feed! The message from the Ancestors they are bringing me is, I believe, John there are tiny flying insects in your house! The Fantails have been coming in the house since I tore up the floors in a couple of rooms of the house to replace piles etc. and took down the ceilings and parts of walls that were stuffed and I guess removing all the crap released the smell of decaying wood and attracted insects. The demolition is over now and I am rebuilding what was removed. A busy time. The first thing I did when I bought this house 5 years ago was plant native and Australian plants that birds love and this is now paying off

The Weekly Portrait: Sean in a green robe and the Artist with a chopped up hand

I drew our young model at the last life drawing class for the term and the next day, Thursday before Easter, I got my left hand sliced open for a carpal tunnel operation. Had both hands done now.

Art and Music Exhibition: a celebration..

The War Memorial Hall in Waihi's main street has been hired for Queen's birthday weekend, 29 May to 1 June for an exhibition of the artworks that have been developed from the studies of the local life drawing class, some artworks from local primary and secondary schools and local poets and musicians will be performing all through the two and a half days the exhibition is on.
Plenty of work to organize this but all involved are keen and we should have lots of fun.
The musicians shown here I photographed 2 Saturdays ago so Sheryl (that's her above on the Stratocaster) can make line drawings and paintings of the band. This band is called No Boys Allowed and these lovely ladies and many other musician friends and aquaintances will be entertaining the art and music lovers at our exhibition.

The Artist's House

It is time to renovate the artist's house. It is what is known locally as a 'pre 1914 goldminer's cottage', has been extensively modified and enlarged by several owners over the past few decades and it is a house with loads of character..... a tad too much character for my liking so I got stuck in and ripped out the ceilings and floors of 3 rooms.
A major undertaking. No hot water for a few weeks. And in the middle of this project I decide to put on an exhibition. A large complicated exhibition. Busy time to say the least but I am happy to have a challenge....