4/52 'remembering moeraki'

This book was made from drawings I had done whilst staying at Moeraki in New Zealand with fellow artist Steph McLennan.  What a trip we had - 8 or 9 days visiting the boulders at various times of day and tide, hundreds of photographs taken, work done en plain air which was fun as a number of people  came up to see what we were doing and look at our work.  One lady, an author visiting from America asked if she could buy the sketch I was working on!  I ended up giving her the sketch and just asking that she 'pay it forward' in some way.  She wrote back a couple of times and said she had had it framed and continued to love the drawing.  How lovely was that.

I know I have blogged once or twice about the Moeraki Boulders so will not ramble on about them much more other than to say that my drawings do not do them justice.  These drawings were purposely matched with the rusted paper as it was so strongly suggestive of the concretions at Moeraki.  Their underlay to my drawings on film suits my purpose here.  

In reality the boulders are dark and majestic and mysterious, and not like these drawings at all though the shapes are there and the passage of water around the boulders as the tide came in.

I could draw for a year at Moeraki, quite happily watching the different light and moods of the day affect the boulders.  There are many details to get lost in as well which are not shown here at all.  I believe that as time passes the shore line is eroding and more of these concretions/boulders are appearing.  Must mean I have to go back at some point ....

The book is about 40 cms in width and reads horizontally (making it very difficult to open and photograph.  I laminated two thicknesses of grey board for both covers which meant that on the front I could cut a window and insert this image.  It was great fun juggling ten needles to sew the book.  The photo above looks as though I have cleverly created an image of a boulder on the spine - though this is just a serendipitious shadow.