Xmas Day 2008

One of the strange things about Christmas in New Zealand is that all the symbols of the traditional Christmas from winter in the Northern hemisphere survive as strongly as they do in the old country. Santa Claus wrapped up with boots, hat and thick overcoat, the reindeer, sleigh, holly, mistletoe, everything. Being in the Southern hemisphere, as we are, there is no snow here, and it is mid summer, so we are wearing shorts, bikinis (Anita that is, not me) and the like.
The temperature is in the 20's; eating outside is the norm, and although the sea is still fairly cold we've been swimming at Tutukaka in the sea, as well as in our next door neighbour's pool, which they have lent to us whle they are away.


A cold lunch on Christmas day of delicious New Zealand smoked salmon was had on the deck, and the Drunken duck, a Chinese recipe was saved for the evening.

Trains

Duncan is a favourite of Joe's trains and is known to get a wee bit angry at times. One of his characteristics is too sway on the track, known as 'Rocking and Rolling'.

Weta

The Weta is one of the strange creatures that only lives in New Zealand.
It is an ancient species which hasn't evolved much in the last 100 million years and has seen the dinosaurs come and go.
It lives in dark places in the forest and sheds it's exoskeleten repeatedly as it grows too big for it, which can often be found. This one is however a complete but dead weta.
There are many species of weta, some small, some huge, but they are all nocturnal.

Trip to Auckland Museum

It was a wet Saturday and Joe and dad decided to pay a visit to the museum. Joe loves the museum and has some particular favourite rooms. One is the volcano room. We had to wait for a while in the car until 10.00am which was when it opened.


Joe outside Auckland War memorial museum waiting for it to open.


Prow of a very long Maori canoe.



There is a great collection of Micronesian and Polynesian carving which Dad (Ken) was very keen on when he was here in 2002, and he did quite a few drawings of these small carved figures during several visits to the museum.


Once in Joe's favourite room we were able to see this cast of one of the incinerated victims from Pompeii and a drawing of the earth with Magma inside the earth bursting up in the form of volcanoes.

Some Lego vehicles

Isn't lego great! We are all pretty keen at making vehicles with lego, and here are a few which have been made recently. I find it quite funny putting the wrong size wheels onto a vehicle which otherwise seems well proportioned. The wheels can be too small or too big, the humourous effect is the same.

The fish shop

Joe has used fish from a game called 'Let's Go Fishing' and a toy woodworking bench to create a fish shop. He is quite keen on buying and selling fish.

Should have posted this photo last Halloween 2008 but didn't get round to it. It is now a family tradition to carve a pumpkin every year and this is what it looked like for 2008. He's got a toothy grin this time due to a tea candle placed inside. Joe adores this tradition.

Club Champs

This weekend we have had club champs at College Rifles. I took a few photos of the open competition and Emma Rodgers and Kevin Dennerly-Minturn played, both winning their respective singles as well as combining in the mixed.

Image gathering around Auckland

I've been rumaging around Auckland city looking for unsuspecting people to photograph and buildings of interest. A few weeks ago I found this gem in a pedestrianised street off Queen Street.
It has been made into a pub which sells Belgian beer, which made it even more interesting for me.


I included it in a painting by compositing it onto the edge of a park (urban park 2)
raising it up onto a plinth so that it towers above the figure walking past.

Christmas Day 2007

After a seafood bbq, pavlova and chocolate pudding we were all a bit tired so it was time for photos on the bed.

New website

I am building a new website but it is going slowly as the method I was using to build it has become unusable. That was 'Freewebs' who are also hosting the site. There is a problem there too in that it is too slow to load.

I will find another software means of building and updating the site but in the meantime it is on hold. However once it is going properly it will be called matthewjamescarter.com

Double portrait started

Matthew has been working on big double portrait of Mandy & Desi
have a look at it here:
Paintings

They have gone off travelling now for a week to learn how to surf.

Amanda and Desi arrive in New Zealand

Amanda and Desi arrived in Auckland 7 hours apart from each other on different flights. One at nearly midnight and the other at 7am. Both arrived safely and got over the jet lag very quickly. Here they are with Joe in the Winter Garden in Auckland Domain.

Halloween

Anita bought a pumpkin to carve for Halloween. It was quite difficult to do and resulted in Matthew's assistance. Here is the finished result which is a very friendly pumpkin!

Joe has a hair cut

We decided that Joe looked far too much like Albert Einstein and needed a hair cut. This is Joe before he had his hair cut up a tree in Cornwall Park.

Kotaro

Here is a new painting I've started of Kotaro Suzuki, who is staying with us for some months. He spent a lot of time learning one of Bach's preludes and I thought it would be good to see as a painting.

College Rifles Badminton Hall.
I've got to prepare a speech for the AGM coming up in November and I find the best time to write it is 4 am.

Another sunny day on the roof. The wind didn't get up until about midday when it took me by surprise and knocked the canvas off the easel onto my palette. A few splodges of paint and some swearing later, I secured it again only to have the same thing happen again.
Here is the result of the mornings painting.
I am getting 6 paintings ready for an exhibition which I'm getting a bit anxious about and I want to include this one. I is not quite finished though and the deadline is this weekend!

Another windy and hot day on the roof.

Today wasn't as windy as yesterday, but my canvas still got blown off the easel as soon as my back was turned. How do these 'plein air' painters manage without having to wait for weeks for the perfect day with a clouldless sky and not a breath of wind? Today for example if I saw that the sun had come out, I made my way upstairs but by the time I got set up, a large dark cloud had come over and a shower started! Off I trot with canvas, easel, paints etc inside.

Anyway here are the results of today's painting.

The partition wall is complete and I've gibstopped (filled the holes in the plasterboard) and painted it so it is ready for visitors or another homestay. Here it is from the outside of the room.


and here is Joe helping me build it.

A great windy day for painting on the roof

Today was a hot and windy day for painting on the roof. I have no pictures from today either of the hot windy weather directly or of the painting I have started, so here instead is an old one of a lovely hot day in Coromandel when we were on holiday:

And here's one of the others on the beach when it was not quite so sunny.

I will update you on the progress of the new bedroom tomorrow with some photos. (that is if anyone is watching!!)