Pledge Me!! The Art of a Hut

   I have now got my pledge me account all set up and published! My goal is to raise $3,000 for 'The Art of a Hut' project in just 40 days!

   So I need your help. I'm asking for your support to make it possible for me to go and draw as many North Island huts as I can in a few months. Even if you don't have any money to give, you can share this with your family and friends, everything will help us reach the goal. I have some good rewards of original art to give away to those who pledge me!

    I made a short video about the project. I wish I had a proper camera then I could have made a much better one. But that;s one of the things I'm raising money for... When I do get a camera I'm looking forwards to making some good drawing videos of huts, and sharing the journey with you.

   So Please! Pledge Me!

The Snow down South

  I came home from the snow on Monday night totally exhausted and a bit sick but very satisfied and happy. We had an amazing time down on Mount Ruapehu. Everything went fine, and there was no one in the hut already, and no one hurt themselves too badly tearing down the slopes on toboggans and skis. Not many of us had skied before so that was amusing to see! I had a go and did begin to get it, and it was so much fun! My second time ever in real snow! And we even got snowed on!

Here's Lupton Hut with a rainbow behind her. It was an hour and half walk from the car park. She was a snug little cabin and even had carpet on the floor! In fact, it was warmer than our house at home!

We called ourselves the Snow PatrolL

And that's me with my inside-out bag which everyone claimed had more stuff attached to the outside than it had on the inside! But that was on the homeward journey.

The mountain is a very touristy area which meant the paths were pretty flash!

I just managed to find a couple of hours to sketch the hut, I wish I had had more time, but we were always doing something from early in the morning till dark.

The real snow was about an hours walk up from the hut. One day we walked as far as we could up into the snow, and the rest of the days we walked back out to the van and drove up to the ski fields where we had fun on the toboggans and skis.

Here is a video of us on the snow on the last day. I'm the photographer so you only see my feet sliding down! :)

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

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

Find me elsewhere!

  Just thought my blog followers would like to know about the other places I haunt on the internet, though at the moment I'm not haunting the internet at all but having a glorious week at the snow away from the computer screen!

• My facebook page: Felicity Deverell Fine Art: I keep this updated with all the things that's going on and also add every drawing from my 365 Days of Drawing challenge to the page.
• Twitter: @FelicityFineArt: Yes, I have a twitter! 
• Pintrest: Felicity Deverell: I find so much inspiration on Pintrest and share my own drawings.
• And of course my website: Equine Fine Art.net: I still have my old name for the website address. I am still an equine artist and accepting commissions for portraits, actually I'm wanting some more work at the moment.
• Google+: Felicity Deverell: I don't know so many people who have Google+ so if you do feel free to add me to your circle.
• You Tube: Felicity Deverell: I have several videos of my art, including a studio tour and speed drawings.

  Wow, I didn't know how many places I can be found on the internet! Here is a picture or two of mine for you to look at! Have a good day.

     

365 Day's of Drawing... Some Drawings from that.

  When I look through my folder of drawings from each day since November, I can remember something from each of those days which otherwise would be lost to memory forever. I don't remember everything from the particular day, but I remember the moment I was drawing, what my surroundings were, and sometimes I remember the very thoughts that were running through my head while I was drawing that picture.

Here are a few recent sketches from my daily drawing challenge:

As you can see, a lot of my drawings lately have taken on a sketchbook page style. I think I might begin a sketchbook so I can sketch away there and do a proper drawing for my 'official' daily drawing! I've been wanting to make some sketchbooks of my own lately, here is some of my inspiration for it.

To the Snow!!

    When you read this I will be making my way down south to Mt Ruapehu--to the snow!

    It's something my friends and I have been talking about for awhile, and now we are going! We will be staying in one of the DOC huts on the foothills and have one pair of skis and a couple of toboggans. And are planning a good freeze! There will be eleven of us going in one big van taking a couple of days to travel down. I haven't been down south much and haven't seen much of New Zealand at all really having lived all my life in Northland, the winterless north.

   Where we are staying is apparently near to Gollum's pool which was filmed for Lord of the Rings, so we'll have to have a look at that wont we!

   I'm hoping to get a chance to draw the hut while we are there, and the neighbouring one which is just a short walk away. I also want to take the chance of doing some filming down there for my video promoting The Art of a Hut project. I'm working on setting up a pledge me account to raise money for the project. 

   I'll tell you all about the snow after I get back next Sunday. Hopefully we have lots of snow and beautiful weather and no earthquakes or volcanoes. After all it is an active volcano and one of the most dangerous places to be at the moment, according to my brother. Imagine us sliding down the while slopes of a beautiful mountain under sunny skies -- just like this:

'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.'

Inspiration in drawing, Richard Schmidt, and Sketchbooks..

  Since The Art of the Hut project was first formed I've been gathering inspiration from various artists and visualizing all the drawings of huts I will be doing this coming summer. Studying paintings and drawings that I admire helps me with things like what works in perspective, composition, and focal points. The great artist Richard Schmidt is one of my main inspirations and I admire all of his work, and at the moment particularly his paintings of buildings. He says so much with each brushstroke and he keeps his focal point clear and the painting unconfusing which is hard when it comes to buildings.

Here are some more sketches of buildings which inspire me found on Google images. 

  

Here's some sketchbook inspiration from YouTube:

Both watercolour paintings, I might take a few watercolours with me and keep a watercolour sketchbook while we are on the trip.

Speaking of sketchbooks I have ideas of making a few of my own. I love all kinds of sketchbooks, but it is hard to find the perfect one. I may get close to what I want by making my own, using the Coptic binding technique which will allow me to open it up flat. And I also have some inspiration for covers from Pintrest.

Avoca Hut, South Island (Video)

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. 

                                                                                     

Introducing Caleb

   I think it's about time I properly introduced the co-author of this crazy plan, 'The Art of a Hut'. Caleb Bergstrom, is his name, and if it wasn't for him I don't think I would have been able to get on so far with the project as I have. It would have merely been one of those ideas one has and thinks, in passing, how awesome it would be to be able to do that one day, and which never happens. But, thanks to Caleb's enthusiasm, and because I have someone to do it with who is just as much involved and interested as I from the very start -- well, it looks like I might just happen to find myself drawing and living in backcountry huts for six months of my life very soon.

   Caleb is from Hawkes Bay, which is a long drive south from up here in Northland. He was staying with us when we came up with the idea of drawing huts. You see, he had applied to enter the army as an engineer and had been waiting all year to see if he would get it, but, while he was up here, he found out that he hadn't gotten in. That was a disappointment for him, but he is now free to help with The Art of a Hut project and become the co-author of our eventual book. So, he is going to take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity to explore our country. 

  

  He is looking forwards to spending a whole summer and more tramping and he's planned allot of hunting and fishing. Hopefully he will be able to keep the three of us fed!

  The third person in our adventure will vary. For the first two months our friend, Thomas, will be coming with us. And after that we have several friends who want to come along when they can fit in. We are planning to go in Caleb's tiny white Toyota starlit, I'm wondering how we will manage to fit into it, it will certainly make things interesting! 

   Caleb has promised me he will write a post or two for this blog himself sometime soon, so hopefully that will give you a further glimpse into who he is. 

'Bygone Eras' Video of historical Kaweka Huts