Painting, Music, and Apple Picking

   Since coming home from hut hopping life has gone back to normal-ish. I don't have so many things-to-do on my list which is really nice. I'm learning how to limit how much I bite off, because it's exhausting and disheartening trying to chew really fast to get through everything!

   So what am I doing with myself these days? 

   I've been painting. Last week I worked on a large painting of Rocks Ahead Hut, one of the huts I drew in the Kawekas last month. Here is a small detail from the painting when it was in an unfinished state. I had only my sketch from on location and my memory to work with. I did have photos of the hut but they were taken at a different time of day and the shadows and light were completely different so there were useless to me.

   I quite enjoyed painting again. It's nice to come back to after doing mostly drawing for a long time.

   I have been reading a lot too, these days. I have two large volumes about the Impressionist painters in the ninteenth century. It's full of beautiful paintings and I am enjoying reading all about the artists like Renoir, Monet, Cezanne, Dagas, Manet, etc. I love the Impressionists and there work and it is really interesting to become more familiar with their work and study their paintings and notice how really very like impressions they really are and yet what makes them so appealing and so beautiful that they have stood well the test of time and are still the most loved paintings in the world.

Monet

   I think it fascinating how all these painters who began the Impressionist movement all knew each other and influenced and encouraged one another in this new way of looking at the world and putting it on canvass. And yet they each had a different take on the same thing all contributing a certain aspect to the movement.

The Monet Family at their garden in Argenteuil. 1874 Edouard Manet

   There is so much information on the internet about these artists but it is often very confusing and possibly unreliable. I often comes across bad copies of the masters works passed of as the real thing on Pintrest and such sites when I'm looking for images of paintings. So I much prefer to read real books about artists, it's much nicer and easier to study them that way. I have just got a pile of books out of the library about Dagas and Cezanne which I am looking forward to reading through.

   When I am not painting or drawing or thinking or reading about painting and drawing I am spending a lot of time with Jenny, my piano. I am currently enjoying learning Chopin's Nocturne 2. Maybe I'll be able to play it as well as this someday:

      At the end of this month I am going to the South Island! Somewhere I've wanted to go for a long time. I'm going to join a couple of friends picking apples near Nelson for a month and then go traveling around and see a bit of my country. Of course while I'm down there I'll do the best I can to get to lots of huts to draw them for my project. The Art of a Hut.

  I'm really looking forwards to spending a couple of months down there picking apples which means earning money--a novelty for me! And then traveling around with my friends in a bright blue ford falcon '70. Lots of fun, my sketchbook will be ever at my side and when I come back I'll share them with you. So you won't hear much from me here in the months of April and May but I'm not going away just yet and I plan to do a fair bit of blogging this month.

How Venison came on the Menu

Walking into Te Totara hut: 6 December, 2013. 

   We started walking at about 5:00 pm. It was late to begin what turned out to be a 6 hour walk, but when home is the next hut, it's either that or sleep in the car park. We walked out from Roger's Hut that morning and I stopped to finish my sketch of Skips hut on the way.

   We had a good walk out to the car down the track like a highway, the track there is also a bike trail and so the going is pretty even. We got to the car and had then to find the beginning of the next hut track. There was no reception in the area and Mum was expecting to hear from us that day, so we stopped off at a house beside the road and were kindly allowed to borrow their phone. I called Mum to let her know not to worry about us if she didn't hear from us in the next two weeks as it was not likely we would be back into civilization before then. As it turned out we did because of my knee.

   Half of the way to Te Totara hut was by a dirt road through private land. From the map we had hoped we could dive up it but when we got there it was obvious the Starlit would not make it up. Through numerous fords and deep ruts. So we walked the extra 2.5 hours to White's Clearing at the top. On the way I saw wild deer for the first time. I'd been looking out for deer during the whole trip. We don't have them wild up here in Northland so it was quite a novelty. We saw so many on the way up through the private land. There was a herd of hinds grazing on the slope opposite us, we counted about 30 of them and crept up close to watch them. We observed them for a long time with Caleb itching to get his gun out, but we were still on private land so he couldn't do that. Then the wind changed and they smelt us, saw us and then disappeared in a trice.

   As soon as we got onto DOC land and on the river path downstream to the hut Caleb got his gun out of his pack and walked ahead with all eyes and ears open. Here was the best chance he had to shoot a deer. The sun had gone down and the light was slowly fading. We walked on down the river crossing and recrossing it numerous times. My knee was beginning to trouble me, especially on the rough terrain of boulders and loose rocks, so I concentrated hard on the ground ahead. I remember thinking that if Caleb did shoot a deer I might be able to persuade the boys that we should stay an extra day at the hut. We would have enough food and my knee really didn't want to do any more walking-- my thoughts were blasted out of my mind and I looked up startled at the sudden explosion. I saw Caleb dart away from the track down to the river. 'I got im!' he was saying excitedly as we followed him to the river edge. He let off two more shots in the excitement somewhere over the river. Then he dumped his pack and waded across with his axe. I never saw the deer until he pulled it out from behind a bank where it had fallen.

   It was just a young thing, and I felt sad to see it lying there dead when it had been so alive moments before. It was still warm when I stroked it's face and allowed myself a quiet moments grief. But Caleb was jubilant. Nothing could have pleased him more; his first deer! And I was happy for him too, and for the fresh meat that it meant.  

   We were still a couple hours walk from the hut and was getting dark very fast. We set off in high spirits, which sank steadily during the next several hours. Caleb carried the deer on top of his already heavy pack until the path began to go up, and he could barely move from the weight of it. Then Thomas helped and carried half of it and from then on it was an awful struggle through the dark trying to keep to the track by spotting the orange triangles with the torches. I don't think we could have kept to the track if it wasn't for the markers. And even with them we almost lost the track a few times and had to turn around and re-find it. But at last, at long last we came to the hut and crossed the river up to our waists and collapsed at the hut. It was 11:30. We didn't even have venison that night, but ate a quickly cooked up meal rice and tuna and fell asleep as we hit the bunks.

   The next day looked like this: Legs of meat hanging either side of the fire getting smoked to keep the flies off. Strips of meat hanging over sticks to dry it out and keep. And meat in the frying pan to eat. We did stay an extra day at the hut and we ate a lot of venison, especially the boys, I was amazed at the quantities they were able to consume!

   All the venison lasted us for the rest of the trip and we had dried meat left over. It saved a lot on the grocery bill! Hopefully we will have the same luck in our next hut hopping trip. This was one of the highlights of the trip which was well and truly earned!

More 'Hut Hopping'

   While I was out tramping and drawing huts I managed to strain my knee and doing lots of walking on it made it no better. So we came home early as it was getting too sore to walk on anymore. I've been hoping that it will get better soon so that we can start 'hut hopping' again this month, but it is not going away in a hurry. It dose not hurt if I am not working it and just doing every day walking but once I'm walking for an hour or so up and down hills that's when it begins to agonize me. But I'm hoping for the best and planning to hitch down with Thomas around the 12th to join Caleb in Hawkes Bay and start drawing huts in the Kawekas. I rode an hour on the bike today to go and feed my horse Lady, (she is doing well and the stitches should come out in a few days), and it didn't hurt then which is a good sign

   But if my knee is still too sore by then to walk on, well, I just wont be able to do it... Sad thought indeed. I'm missing hut life. I'd like to live like that some more. I didn't have to think about anything but doing what I love doing most, drawing. It was nice to be away from the busy world and too be doing what I'd thought about and planned for so long. There is something addictive about long tramps in the bush and getting to huts and staying there a day before having another adventure getting to the next hut. I always thought that people who always go on long bush walks were crazy to keep wanting to go back for more punishment. I couldn't understand why people seem to love it so much, especially as I was walking up and down some pretty steep walks drop dead tired. But now I can't wait to get back out there. I never thought that the actual walking could be so enjoyable. But it is; through beautiful places, one foot after the other, lots of time to think about lots of things or nothing at all. Enjoying good company and having interesting conversations on the way, or concentrating hard on the footwork when the path got steep and tricky.

   I've just had a taste of it, but I've got myself hooked! I like tramping. I've become a hut bagger now, you can see all the huts I've been to here. Not many yet, but the list will grow considerably in the next few years.

   This was one of the hardest walks we did; to Motutapere Hut. Mostly because we were tired and it was a sweltering day. From where the photo is taken from we walked all the way in and up to the bush through the forestry which was incredibly warm! The bush was a cool relief and we walked along a nice path until we got to the top of the ridge and then to our dismay the path went steeply up and steeply down over and over again in quick succession. The path went over all those little peaks at the right of the photo. There were ten in all until we got to the hut. I never felt more glad to see a hut!

Motutapere Hut, 25 November, 2013. Charcoal on Strathmore toned paper.

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.

Last Update before Christmas!

So, I'm all ready to go. All I have to do now is write this post and then I can sleep so I can wake up early tomorrow to leave. I'm all packed, but the food situation still looks like this:

This is before grocery shopping for the trip, most of it is the remains of Caleb's possum trapping trip. We did lot's of baking today so the tins are full of hearty musili bar like biscuits which will keep us going on our long walks. Our staple diet will be rice, that's alright, I like rice! Caleb assures me possum is really good to eat, I'm not so sure. Possum is one of the worst smells! But I'm willing to try it! Hopefully he will be able to catch us more appetizing meat like venison, rabbit and trout. He has all his fishing and hunting permits already sorted out for that. We shall see how plentiful the game is, and I'll let you know when I come back for Christmas...

All my drawing supplies have been packed. My paper is stored in a plastic folder for the car, and when we go tramping to the huts I will roll up as much sheets as I will need into the black tube to carry it in. I have a drawing board which Caleb drilled some holes into today so that we can strap it onto a pack. I will mask paper to that for drawing, then roll it up again into the tube once I have finished drawing a hut. 

 

I also have some sketchbooks to fill up. And I was given a very cute watercolour set and tiny moleskin sketchbook which I shall enjoy using. I have restarted my drawing every day challenge. I never did complete my challenge to draw every day the year I was 20. I got up to day 199 and then from then on it dwindled away, mostly because of the hut drawing project which majorly distracted me. But I began the challenge again the day after my 21st birthday last Friday the 15th. This time I think I have more of a chance to complete it and draw every day I'm 21. I know what I'm in for now, and I'm more focused on drawing now. Also, I have begun it in an A4 sketchbook and shall complete a series of them this year. It will be easier than just drawing on loose sheets of paper like I was doing originally. 

Here are the first two pages of my sketchbook for drawing every day:

So the first huts we head to are in the Kaimai range near Tauranga. I will be drawing in there for a week before we head down to the mass of huts in the Te Ureweras. It was a bit of a challenge trying to make a route through there, and pick out which huts I want to draw. The only information I have of them is from the DOC website and a hut book I have which has only a limited number of huts. But I managed to write down a list of huts I particularly want to see. My goal is to draw 15 huts in this first month. The areas circled are where we will be until Christmas.

So, goodbye you all. I will write up a long update when I come back for Christmas, around the 20th of December. Take care..

Film Cameras

    After the interview, I could breath again and we visited some of the parliament buildings nearby before nearly missing our train. Marion had an old film camera of her families which we used to take photos with. We asked a few people to take photos of us with it and it was rather amusing to see their reactions to the old style camera. Everyone automatically looked down at the screen to see the photo which, of course, they couldn't. 

   I have all of a sudden been inspired by old style cameras. I remember when our family had film cameras, and how each photo was taken carefully considering weather it was worth using up shots, and how exciting it was when the developed photos came back from the chemist and we would see how they had turned out. Then came along digital cameras which are so much better in so many ways. More convenient, faster, and you can take a hundred photos of one thing, delete them all, then take a hundred more within an hour.

    But lately I have become sick of the speed of modern day life. There is so much information and images flying around and bombarding from every side that I just want to press pause and put the world into slow motion just to get a chance to look around me and see things in my own time. That's why I value sketches so much, because it takes time, it takes skill and the artist has really looked at the subject, considered it and interpreted it. A film camera has a little bit more of this feeling about it than a digital one. While I was looking through the view finder at Marion and the parliament buildings beyond I had a feeling that I was capturing a memory, as I would in a sketch. It felt like it had more worth than a digital image. There is more thought and time put into one film photograph, and no instant gratification to see the image. I don't know quite why I like it so much, but those good old film cameras have got me hooked and whenever I go traveling I shall have one at my side! 

Radio Interview!

     I am back from a week away from my usual life and planning for my drawing project, and even from drawing. Seven of us young people traveled away down south to Levin, where we were thinning a pine forest. I was one of two girls helping to look after the boys who worked really hard welding chainsaws through the forest every day. We cooked and cleaned for them and had the job of marking trees for the boys to fell. On the first day I slipped and managed to cover myself in the whole pot of white paint which caused allot of laughter. for several days afterwards I was quite white from the experience! After that we used spray paint! It was a good work experience and now I know a little bit about thinning pine trees.

    While we were down there my friend, Marion, and I took one day off to travel down to the Capitol, Wellington, where I had an appointment with Radio New Zealand. It was very surreal to walk through the city and into the high-rise off The Terrace and talk in the professional recording studio about The Art of a Hut. I had been in a different world all week and very distracted from the project, which turned out to be quite good because had I been at home I would have been thinking about the radio interview too much and getting really nervous. As it was I wasn't so nervous, but that still didn't help me speak very well! Caleb and I sound like a couple of rookies with an exciting idea that we don't know much about! Well I guess I don't yet, but after a year of drawing huts I'll be quite confident in talking about it. I hope... You can listen to the interview here: The Art of a Hut Radio.

   All the people there were really lovely and the interviewer, Lynn, did her best to make me feel comfortable and draw out my enthusiasm for drawing and huts. Everyone I met there seemed to be very relaxed and to love their job. It was very interesting to see all the recording equipment, and buttons and dials and the sound proof recording studio with the big window. It was strange to hear Caleb over the headphones; he was far away in a studio in Napier. I haven't talked to him since then because he's gone off possum trapping for a week. So I don't know how he thinks it went. For myself, I'm glad I wasn't horribly nervous, but I wish I could have spoken better, more confidently, and said a bit more. We managed to listen to part of it on our drive back up north on Sunday when it was on the radio. It was painful for me to listen to, but at least I was myself, and I guess that's all I can be!

    It is a month today until my 21st birthday, and it will be a matter of days after that before we set of on out 'hut hoping' expedition! It's getting more exciting and real by the day. I'm going to spend the rest of today sorting and ordering art supplies. I'm looking forwards to make a batch of sketchbooks next week, when my paper arrives.

Iron Gate Hut (video) 'The Art of a Hut'

One of the Huts we will possibly visit and I'll be drawing. 

'Historic Buildings' (Video)

'After the first World War, returned servicemen tried to farm the wild, untamed Wanganui River country, but the bush fought back, leaving the valley abandoned by the early 1900s.'

How The Art of a Hut will become a reality.

 

Sketch of Cone Hut from photo by Shaun Barnett

   Now that you know what I'm doing you might be asking how I'm going to do it. Yes, I'm asking that too. Being a penyless artist I have no means at all to be able to carry out this ambitious drawing project. But nevertheless, I'm determined and we will be going away in November however we do it!

  We have been doing some budgeting and the main expenses are art supplies; essential gear such as proper sleeping bags so we don't freeze, a camera so that we can share the adventure with you through photos and videos; and food and fuel for Caleb's little dinky Toyota starlit which is going to be carrying us around the North Island. We have calculated the total cost of the project to be around $7,500 New Zealand Dollars.

  To raise such a sum our main idea is to find a few big sponsors for our project and to find them we are working on advertising The Art of a Hut project via newspapers and perhaps the radio and of course through blogger and facebook etc. (so please comment, like, share etc. it dose help!). We have also been emailing a few potential sponsors, haven't heard much back yet, but will keep you updated on that. We have been assured that DOC will help us with hut tickets at least, but we haven't heard from them yet. Waiting, waiting, waiting.... It's great fun!!

   If you would like to help us out in any way you can we would be so grateful as anything will help us achieve our goal and make this project happen. To make it fun, I'm going to have a draw which everyone who donates will automatically enter. The prize will be a gift certificate for a commissioned graphite or charcoal drawing of any size. The winner will be announced in October. 

                                                                                     

A New Adventure Begins!

A month ago I began brainstorming ideas for ways to start getting somewhere in my artistic career. I decided I needed to start working towards an exhibition, but I needed a subject, a theme. 

I began a list and wrote down 'Huts' and didn't get any further than that. I had been thinking about drawing or painting the old farm buildings and huts one sees everywhere in New Zealand. And now the idea suddenly came back to me.

My friend, Caleb, was with me at the time and, together, from the one idea of huts as the subject for an exhibition, we came up with a wild idea which has become quite a serious project! 

It's called 'The Art of a Hut'

This is what I wrote in my

The Art of a Hut Newsletter:

This summer, if all goes to plan, two friends and I will set off into the bush to disappear into the backcountry for six months. We will be traveling all around the North Island staying at DOC huts all the way. And I will be drawing each of the 50 or so huts that we stay at. After the six months I will go home to my studio (quite sick of the bush by then I'm sure!) and work on larger finished drawings of the huts and prepare my work for an exhibition sometime in the spring of 2014.

   I am really looking forwards to drawing the huts and anything else my pencil finds to sketch on the way. There will be a lot of tramping involved and a whole lot of roughing it. It will be quite an adventure and an amazing opportunity to experience my own country in places where our roots are still in sight. I will be taking a journal with me and keep up a written record of our adventures in the bush; for we also have in mind publishing a book of my sketches and the stories of the huts as we experience them.

   I have chosen pencils over paint, not only because this will be a lot cheaper and more realistic for me, but because I really love drawing as a medium in itself. I wish to promote it as an important aspect of the arts and show that it is not inferior to painting, and can stand alone as an artistic end in itself.

   This is a really ambitious project for me: a poor artist having barely started out in my career, but I believe it will definitely be worth it, and hopefully will be the means of opening many doors of opportunity into the future.

   So, there you have it! The rest of this winter will be spent in planning and fundraising and all that sort of thing which is going to be a whole new learning experience for us.

I plan to have this blog very involved with the project all the way, so 'stay tuned!' as they say.