BoulderBay Design & Art

I grew up in Redcliffs on the north side of Banks Peninsula, Canterbury inhabited by humans since 1100 and shaped by volcanic activity which gives the rocks and cliffs a red hue. It’s been relaxing to spend a couple of weeks back at our family home. Growing up it was all about swimming in the sea, getting out in the sail boat with dad and roaming around the hills growing up. so these are some scenes of this area.

This spread took a while! I had an hour before closing at the spectacular so drew one the the dozens of over life sized mosaic figures made by artist Josie Martin over the course of 22 years. I drew her in pencil and coloured in at home with Josie Martin had started out dry decorating a step at her colonial homestead on the hill above Akaroa using broken ceramics that she found in the garden. She kept going! An unforgettable place where you could draw for hours.

These pages took a while! This is one small part of the incredible - a place where you could draw for days. I had an hour there before closing so I sketched this figure with a stack of glazed blue bananas on her head in pencil then coloured at home with The plantings and flower beds are as stunning as the mosaics. The artist Josie Martin started by decorating the step of her colonial homestead on the hill above using broken ceramics she found in the garden Twenty two years later her garden is full of her unique sculptures. Unforgettable.

There was a seething mass of humanity on the Cook Strait ferry when we travelled to the South Island a few days ago but this card playing family made a peaceful circle - most of the time. Some tense moments as the dad explained finer rule points. We always enjoy the spectacular sheer cliffs, rock stacks and islands at the entrance to Kura Te Au which we both had a crack at drawing as the ferry ploughed along. Our whippet Portia survived 4 hours in the on board kennel.

Drawn on location and coloured at home these are on sale at this Sunday’s Heritage Festival at Seatoun community hall in Forres St Seatoun. I will be giving a slide show about at 11am and after that selling books art and cards in the community hall until 3pm. There will be homemade refreshments and vintage crafts to see.

Carmel Sepuloni’s flower crown was the standout for me on election night. No other comment.

A card for a work colleague who is leaving, the Seatoun sky, an outdoor sculpture with pōhutukawa, and a resting whippet.

Sharing postcards sketched here in the capital city with my colleagues at work, who can take a free one. It’s good practice for me, sharing the love plus it’s always nice to get something handmade in the mail!?

Family stayed this week just gone and Wellington served up its full range of weather: two screaming southerly gales, two idyllic still and sunny days and a few other variations in between. I’ve found the brown and blue/green colour scheme versatile.

Blues and orange this time. This page kicked off with a sketch over coffee with .diaries then got caught up in some Japanese patterns from a scarf plus and on a dollshouse teapot. My orchid flowered after nine months and I tried out the when drawing it - HB pencil, orange marker and blue coloured pencil - which I think makes a more interesting sketch than if I’d used ‘natural’ colours.

The imposing Manu or navigating bird at the entrance to our hub at AUT. I did these sketches at the workshop on travel journals: pick a main mage, detail, add title,text and stamped or pasted elements and a map. This should give a rich sense of the chosen place. Thanks for a great workshop Joaquin!

A birthday card for an 18 year old. It was nice to go down the hill marination track for this one. The starting point was the Dublin bay rose that was significant fir the family. Listened to a podcast about James Joyce’s book The Dubliners while working on this.

Sometimes doing the painting is the simple part though even this wasn’t that simple. A year ago I ‘finished’ this for my Dads 80th but I wasn’t happy with how I painted Dad’s nose. Then life got in the way and because I gave him some other presents for his big day it didn’t seem too bad to take the painting away for ‘later’. Dad’s birthday rolled round again this month and I finally sorted his nose at I saw a lovely old oak frame in the ‘free’ basket at the club which was just the right size. It required pulling out the rusty panel pins and taking the whole frame with its small gold painted inner frame apart for a thorough clean. I rubbed in a little brown shoe polish on a few areas where the varnish had worn away. Then an acid free backing, new pins and taped up. Done. And he put it up on the wall. Phew!

It was a process getting to this point since taking the photo of a still and silvery morning from the hill overlooking back in May but I finished it today ahead of the group exhibition in Kilbirnie this weekend.

Yesterday’s sketch meet up at The Beach Cafe & Kiosk with southerly winds making it feel like winter with and Choon Sze

Friday I connected with some other sketchers for a train trip up the Kapiti coast, first stop the seaside village of Paekakariki where this blue beach house appealed Herbs mobile records truck was broadcasting 70s(?) electronica to the neighbourhood the weather was overcast and was a dark blue silhouette with

Dangers of tracing a starfish on your page: there might still be some ‘life’ in it yet as there was in this one so I returned it to the sea. Another Saturday session with local swimmers near this time I just sketched and enjoyed fresh cooked Seaweed muffins Inspired to make my writing neat and part of the page design like and

Use More Te Reo Maori and less Plastic in your morning for People used to get punished for speaking Maori in school and the first language of Aotearoa New Zealand is still classed as ‘endangered’ but many are working to reverse that and today we ‘take a moment for Te Reo Maori’ remembering the moment on this date in 1972 when Maori leaders presented a petition to parliament to uphold the language.

‘Get a meal ready for guests in 30minutes!!’ This would have struck fear and panic in my mother’s Anglo Saxon heart but this was the norm in the childhood home of Kavita of Luckily her mother and grandmother had their preprepared all natural curry paste on hand for when Kavita’s dad brought prospective business partners or clients home for dinner - which was often! This inspired Kavita to make her own fresh curry pastes for busy people and I can vouch for their versatility and deliciousness. Sauté paste, add vegetables and or meat then liquid: water, coconut cream or yoghurt. Same time frame: ready in 30. Also great for reviving left overs, BBQ, or amping up a vegan meal. .nz

I’ll always remember an observation I heard when I was in South Africa: ‘white people need to listen more…’ that hit home powerfully for me. These are drawings done while listening to a recent zoom event on Afghanistan hosted by which is a grassroots group, founded in response to the Chch mosque attacks, that is all about listening and sharing experiences across cultures, having the sometimes uncomfortable conversations that matter and can shift fixed ways of thinking. Always a privilege to be drawing live at these events.

In June I spent time recording events in Wellington to mark There were workshops to devise projects that could help people with refugee backgrounds a photography exhibition food stalls and panel discussions .aldroubi

'FROM TARANTO TO TRIESTE' - This history / travel book, which I designed and laid out at the end of last year, turned out to be one of Whitcoulls’ bestsellers at Christmas 2019. It focuses on New Zealanders in Italy during WW2. There were three printings late last year, and plans to print another edition in Italy for the European market were interrupted due to Covid 19. Hopefully this will go ahead soon. A great read for anyone interested in this era, with loads of historic and contemporary photos and maps. Copies available here:

http://fraserbookspublishing.nz/our-catalogue.html

Developed this resource for Host International, an organisation that works with communities of people newly arrived in New Zealand. This poster was aimed at helping the older generation connect with family using Zoom.

A visual guide for how to use Zoom - useful in times of #covid19 - developed by HOST International NZ with @annetaylor5692 Visit our website (link in profile) and go to > What We Do > Covid19 Resources > to download a PDF version

Hi everyone: Do you have a photograph of a pet, family, landscape or other image that you would like me to paint in watercolour? I will donate all proceeds to a local family who are trying to help their parents who are in lockdown in Afghanistan.

While talking to the Dad of the family in Strathmore Park,
I learnt about how the situation is even harder over there after the 40 years of war, minimal wages and little government backup from the government while businesses are closed.
I wanted to use my art to help....each A5 watercolour painting (148 × 210 millimeters or 5.83 × 8.27 inches) will be priced at the very affordable $100. Know that you will be helping a family.

You can see my art portfolio at https://www.boulderbaydesign.co.nz/
and I am attaching some other pics of gift artworks I have made for people to show you my style. The first two are watercolours, the medium I intend to work in.
I figure I can take on 2-3 such commissions but let's see how we go. Thank you! Anne Taylor M: 027 489 0704

The latest 'Drawing Attention' online monthly zine is out today. I design this each month for a client in California, and this month I also wrote a feature about the recent 'Virtual' trip to Napier that we did with a group of NZ urban sketchers - see page 38.

https://issuu.com/drawingattention/docs/da_may_2020

Drawing Attention May 2020 Drawing Attention, the official monthly zine of the Urban Sketchers organization, communicates and promotes official USk workshops, symposiums, sketchcrawls, news and events; shares news about USk chapters; and educates readers about the practice of on-location sketching.

I'm expecting big things from myself after attending a free social media course enabled by Miramar Peninsula recently, mainly exploring the impressive things you can achieve by using Facebook.com/business/. In the midst of all the info, I slotted in a small sketch but I wasn't drawing the whole time, honest!...

SO HERE ARE MY TOP 'BABY STEPS' for reluctant Facebook users / those returning after a hiatus:

• start with the small things that you CAN do – these should add up over time if you are consistent (just like any goal)

• challenge yourself to check out a new tab or feature each time you are in Facebook or working on your page/s – what was once mystery will become familiar

• problem solve with a millennial whenever they happen to be passing (like I did recently) – BUT retain dignity by trying to work out some things on your own! I find Googling the problem way better than using the Help menu within Facebook itself.

• won't it work best if you are having some occasional fun?! Hence my sketch....good luck!