Painting at Kauri Cliffs

   This is where I have spent the last few mornings this week. At Kauri Cliffs with my easel and paintbrushes watching the sunrise. I have been commissioned to paint a large painting the subject of which is a Toro lawnmower. The painting is to be gifted to the big Toro company in the States for their one hundredth anniversary. So this is an important painting for me and a piece not to be taken lightly.

   Our friend who owns a holiday house next door to us owns a business selling Toro mowers in Hong Kong, has commissioned the painting. He arranged with Kauri Cliffs for me to go there and draw their machines for the painting. Kauri Cliffs is a luxury lodge and one of the best golf courses in the world. They use almost exclusively Toro lawnmowers on the grounds and gulf course, which is kept in perfect condition and tended every day. It only a half hours drive away from home and I had been there only once before to help on a horse trek. I drove down there one afternoon last week. Unfortunately, I picked one of their busiest days and also one of the windiest days of the year so they were very busy trying to keep windblown guests happy. But that did not in the least affect their professional warmth and attention to me. I was given a golf buggy, a map, and the most beautiful spots were recommended and I zipped off and explored the golf course looking for good painting locations.

   The place is incredibly beautiful and well kept, the grass on the gulf course is perfect and yet the surrounding countryside retains the natural farm country look of New Zealand. The view looks over the Cavalli Islands and towards the South one can even see Cape Brett on the other side of the Bay of Islands. I really enjoyed driving around, but there was so many beautiful locations it was hard to choose one for painting the lawnmower in. But I managed to narrow it down to just a few.

    So that is how I came to enjoy some beautiful sunrises this week at Kauri Cliffs. I got there at seven each morning and worked most of the morning until the sun had risen so high I couldn't work any more on the same piece as the lighting had changed so much. The actual painting I will paint in my studio as it is a huge 36 x 48 inch canvass I'll be working on. So I am going to be very busy this month working away in my studio. Since I'm going to the South Island on the 31st I have to get this painting mostly finished by then. It's an exciting project, and in many ways it is the biggest work I've ever done. It's also a great opportunity for my career as this painting is going to America, to the head quarters of a big busy company! It's strange to think that a piece of me will be going so far to such a place. Everything that comes from my hand onto paper and canvass is a piece of me. That is why it is not always easy to make a living out of it. Something most artists have to deal with I guess.