 On the first Saturday after New Zealand went to level one, the sun came out and tons of people were on the Coastal Walkway in New Plymouth.
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 Back in the very early 80's, you could not play video games at home. Instead, tall machines, that could each play one type of game only, packed video arcades. They had awesome artwork on the sides to make up for the prehistoric graphics. I've always loved the retro-future artwork on Galaxian. (Someone should make a video game NOW, using that illustration. The robot insect aliens, future cities, and a split in half moon would make a great game.) Coleco had the idea of making small electronic games that were similar to the stand-up full-sized games. Although not the same, they played in a similar enough way that made them quite popular. The TV ad showed a fantastic 'Mr. Arcade' that was (magically?) shrinking the different games for the addicted kids so that they could play them at home. I made a video that shows a Galaxian arcade game and the (poor quality, yet awesome) TV commercial. (You can also see this game in my previous sketch of my computer desk.)
 On our daily Covid19 exercise walks around an adjacent schoolgrounds, we noticed a late-season swarm of monarch butterflies. So I took a few videos to do some drawing and painting at home.  More coronavirus artwork. I was looking at the videos that I had on my phone for things to draw. This video is of an automata artwork titled, “How to live No. 17 - Spaghetti”. I loved this whole show at the local museum and I REALLY love spaghetti. The artist, Paul Spooner, had a number of things in the travelling exhibition but this one stood out to me. I liked how generally weird it is, the flowing swirls of sauce from the taps, and especially, the subtle chew motion after the character takes a bite.  A bunch of sketchers agreed to meet virtually in Napier to sketch. Since we were all stuck at home, we used Google streetview and then shared the result with a group video chat.
 In New Plymouth, the Iona Dairy has a reputation of reasonably generous scoops of ice cream. So after a bit of drawing and painting, we decided to go for a taste test. What do you think?  This one was actually done a few weeks ago. You know... before the world was put on Pause. Looking forward to getting back to normal things like dairy product research again. In the meantime, I'll be drawing and painting (and snacking) around our house.
At this year's Americarna, I ignored the new cars and went with a classic car to sketch. This is a 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air. A great car in a design variant before they started to get very ugly in the 60's and 70's. I also did this one standing up so it gives it a slightly different angle than usual. There is another quick drawing from a couple days before when they stopped in Waitara. I've never gone out to see the cars when they stop at the smaller towns. I'm not sure if each of the small stops get ALL the cars, there were still tons and it's quite a nice vibe to see Americarna outside New Plymouth.    Our local library has an art competition to collect some art for some printed bookmarks for every year. Usually, it's just for kids but this year they decided to try an adult (tall kid) category. The four themes to choose from were: Whānau (family), Steampunk, Sea Creatures or Play. During the awards it was mentioned that the Steampunk category was quite popular but it just didn't produce any winning entries.  I chose the Sea Creatures theme and mine was selected. Normally I draw from life but for the two snappers I used some photos, and for the octopus I watched a National Geographic YouTube video a number of times as I sketched.  It was great to see the other winners. These kids are way better artists than I was at that age.
 This awesome van was for sale on the side of the road. I like how it's just a normal small van with a bunch of outdoorsy optional extras. It's over a quarter century old and has over a quarter million kilometres on it. It's also way overpriced, but I'm sure someone will buy it. |
