Drawing in the Bush: The Challeges

  Drawing out in the wilderness is very different from in the studio. It has it's difficulties but is very enjoyable on the whole. I love being outside and I love drawing so it was a great holiday for me. Below, I am working on a watercolour of Mangamuka Hut in the Kaimai Range. Caleb had just come back from hunting and was inspecting the painting with a critical eye.

 The challenges of drawing huts abounded. In the first place it was difficult to find a good angle to draw the hut from. It wasn't just a question of which side the hut looked most interesting from, often finding one possible drawing angle was hard. Most huts were either closely surrounded by bush or long grass, so I had to find ways of getting around that. Getting far away from the hut to get a good view of it and get it all to fit on my paper was a challenge but I always found a way. At Te Totara Hut in the southern Ureweras I sat up on a slip over the river from the hut. The hut was surrounded with tall grass so that was the only place I could get a proper view of it.

   You can see me, a blue and red dot in the middle of the slip busy drawing away. One of the boys took the photo from the porch of the hut. Below is what I got from up there. I will have to get all of my drawings properly scanned as the camera doesn't do a very good job of it.

  When and before I began drawing the huts I was thinking of doing just sketches of the huts and working on larger more detailed drawings later as the main thing to show at an exhibition. But I am now thinking that what I draw out there is worth more that what I could do in my studio. They have more interest and character to them and the feel of the place, because I actually drew them on location from what I really saw before me. For an exhibition and a book, all I really need is the material I get out there. But I still intend to do a few paintings on canvass and for those I will work on my studio from sketches and photographs.

Art of a Hut Tramp the First

   Hello! I'm back from my first Art of a Hut adventure. Caleb, Thomas and I spent three weeks tramping through the Kaimai and Urewera ranges. I did a lot of drawing and spent just as much time walking. I'm heaps fitter now, after the first week or so I was quite tired, but I quickly go used to it all.

Here is a link to my newsletter in which I've written a summery of how it all went along with some photos.

The Art of a Hut Newletter

  Here is a sample of sketches from my sketchbook which I took on the trip:

  Daly's Clearing Hut was the first hut we stayed at. It is at the top of the Kaimais. I really enjoyed the time we spent there the weather was beautiful. We visited the huge kauri trees nearby and swam in the river. And this is where I ate possum for the first time! Was really nice too, tasted like butter chicken!

   It was the weekend so on the second night we were there the hut was full of people. Several groups came and people were sleeping on the deck because there was no more room in the hut. Here we met a guy called Matthew who was training for a long endurance running race in the Sahara Desert. He showed us some useful map and compass skills which proved to be very helpful later on.

This is  a hut which we passed on the way to another hut. I began the drawing on the walk in, but it began to rain so I packed up and we walked on the next hut where we stayed. On the walk out again I stopped to finish the sketch. Thomas ran from there all the way back to the car to begin cooking the rice for lunch. On walking days time was precious because we had to walk all the way out from one hut, drive to the next carpark and walk all the way into the next hut and we never knew exactly how long that would take. On this day we didn't get to the next hut until 11:30 that night. Little did I know that as I sat on the damp grass sketching Skip's Hut.

   Several of the tracks to hut followed rivers or streams. Te Totara Hut was built right beside a river and I took the opportunity of practicing drawing water, rather tricky using a pen, but I learnt a thing or two.

Caleb did a lot of fishing for trout. But they were all pretty cleaver creatures and eluded his hook. Except for this one which we ate for dinner. 

  We would often read, write or draw by candle light in the evenings. I drew this on the last night we spent in a hut. We had ginger biscuits most evenings with our black tea. We looked forward to this and always made the most of our rations. I thought I would record the last ginger biscuit I had. We finished of our rations seeing as it was the last night.

It is really good to be home again and I've enjoyed Christmas with my family. 

It hasn't all been a jolly holiday though. Lady, the horse I've been training and hoping to sell cut open her leg on Christmas Eve and had to have seventeen stitches in to sew her up. So I'm busy looking after her and trying to keep her from moving too much. She should heal in a month or more and wont be lame at all, thankfully. 

Getting stitched up by the vet.