View from the family home front door and the old clothes line

I came across a photo I took looking out the front door of the old villa our family grew up in and thought it might be worth thinking about for a future painting. I feel though I am so enjoying drawing so much I might never get to painting! A lot easier, less demanding, and fewer decisions to make.


I was watching TV last night and was amusing myself developing some drawing using some new felt tip pens I have bought. I think now I prefer pencils!


The front door was always a good place to sit on the steps to read the paper; look at the sunny view ( villas weren't that great for sun)   towards the countryside and listen to the magpies which always seemed to have been present. Huge Norfolk pines in the nearby recreation ground also feature ( now Dallison Park renamed after my uncle).

Peter Siddell

I admire Peter Sidell's empty townscapes and his paintings of old villas in Auckland but its a style to meticulous for me.


In the 60s I bought a Robin White print of a villa -  by the vegetation it is also in Auckland.

Robin White

I like the way many artists start from the real and move towards abstraction.

I think there were originally more glass panels but possibly lost in repairs?

I came across this drawing I must have done in the 1980s  so I have added it. A view of our backyard. I liked the patterns of the pegs and the lichen on the clothes line. It is a nice simple drawing aad another idea for a semi abstract painting one day.

Our backyard seemed to alternate from an extensive vegetable garden to a mass of weeds! Even had a chicken coop and an 'outhouse'. And we had a wash house shed.