Trials of Acrylic Painting

 In the first few months, we went on a road trip down to Wellington. Part of the trip included a stop in Napier, where we visited a museum. This museum featured several audiovisual displays, and one of these was about a woman named Mei Whaitiri. She had been chosen at the age of 13 to be the model for Pania on the Reef.

I thought she had quite an interesting face, even though she was about 70 or 80 in the video. I found her to be a compelling character to draw. My first effort, however, ended up looking more like a baboon. Fortunately, after about four iterations, I managed to produce a drawing that I was reasonably happy with—though it wasn’t a true likeness, as you can see from the photo of her and my drawing based on it. I had great difficulties with the head being slightly tilted back.

You can see a video of her here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYUUiDJLpzA

I then decided that this would make a good portrait to try in acrylics. Unfortunately, the results were so alarmingly terrible that I lost all enthusiasm for painting portraits. Maybe it’s just something you have to keep practicing before you gain any real proficiency. Still, I’m puzzled as to why I can draw something reasonably well, yet the moment I pick up a paintbrush, everything turns to custard.

 I will not show it here as it is terrible.

Along these lines, earlier on I had seen a picture in the foyer of our retirement home. I was quite taken with it—it showed some buildings with water in the foreground and a few boats. I thought, That’s a good project for me, especially since I had found a canvas beside the road. The canvas, however, had been painted orange, which didn’t make things easy.

I soon discovered that simply copying someone else’s brushstrokes is not as straightforward as it seems. I ended up with something I thought looked terrible. I propped it up against the wall, planning to paint over it later. But after a while, I got used to the picture. I thought, Well, it’s a picture. Thousands of people paint thousands of pictures, and they all look different. Why shouldn’t mine be just as valid? Even though it’s not very professional-looking—who cares?

A Road Trip from Auckland to Plimmerton and back

  This is about a road trip we took about May 2025. The purpose was to go and visit our daughter who lives in Pukerua Bay which is just north of Wellington. The plan was to drive our car down there and make it into a bit of a road trip, as we haven’t been down the country in many years.

One of the things that we had on the way down from Auckland to Taupo was a rock thrown by a truck into our windscreen but it did not break so ever after that we were thinking that one of the many trucks that we saw coming in the opposite direction was going to do the same thing which does not make for very relaxed driving.

The trip down from Auckland to Taupo is not not such a bad one as there is 110 km/h speed limit which was great. Leaving Taupo, we had to traverse the country from Taupo across to New Plymouth. This meant going by one heck of a lot of back roads and fortunately we were able to use the map function on Rose’s phone so that removed all uncertainty as to which way to turn. 

Our first stop was Taupo where we stayed at a resort which was quite adequate for what we wanted. It had a hot pool so that was used at night as well as in the morning and was absolutely wonderful. We stopped in and looked at Craters of the Moon, which was nice. Shown here:

 Arriving in new Plymouth we stayed in a Airbnb place which was way up in the hills of Mount Taranaki volcano quite a few way out of town. This was a very nice stay and we enjoyed it very much, however being out of town a bit meant we had to make a 15 minute trip to town which was not a big deal. Our first meal that night was in a pub on the corner of somewhere in the middle of town, they had Guiness on tap so all was good.

We were there for about two nights so we did a bit of exploring around the place went to Pukekura Park and that was well worth the visit. Driving around town, we went past what seem to be a spaceship that had landed in the middle of the city.

This was an art gallery designed with a stainless steel facade with a wrinkled facade, so it was quite impressive building. We went inside to see that the entry fee was $25 each at which point we thought, well we’re quite tired aren’t we. Turned around and walked out and went somewhere else had a cup of tea  and then we thought we are not here for very long we might as well get on with it and just pay the $25 to see what we can see.

So we went back in and they said "they’re putting a new show on so the entry fee is only five dollars", which we thought that’s great until we walked in and only half of the place was open and what was open was quite underwhelming. About three floors of matting on walls and things like that not terribly impressive to our eyes. Then again we might be artistic philistines.

We did go down to where the chimney was way down at the south end of of the city and that was quite a nice view.

Next day we went from new Plymouth down to Wanganui. Wanganui seem to be a large city even though apparently there do not seem that many people in there. We walked up one side of the main shopping drag and down the other and we were struck by the age of everything. The buildings seem to be years and years old.

 We stayed in a little Country style hotel which was also very old and very charming Our stay there immensely enjoyable, with dinner in their restaurant which was also really well patronised.

The next day we had to visit my wife’s cousin who has a outdoor furniture factory in Wanganui so that day was taken up a little bit by that, but before we met him, we were going to go in the elevator. Across the river and there is an elevator which takes you up to a different suburb. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and thought well, we’ll just go to the top of the elevator and leave it at that. Photo of that one:

When we got up there we parked the car an because it was a windy day Rose stayed in the car and I went climbed up a little set of steps to the top of the elevator on the outside and had a look at the view. Turning around and I saw there was a tower behind us which I thought was a water tower.

Turns out it is a memorial tower to people that died in the First World War. Open to the public, you climb up a spiral stairway up about five stories.  The view from there is  wonderful, so if you’re there in Wanganui go and have a look at that one.

Then onwards we went from Wanganui down to Plimmerton. That was a nice trip because of the unusual landscape that seem to be changing all the time as you went down there and Plimmerton seems to be a just a little collection of shops where we stayed in a unit at the back of a house.

It used to be a model railway enthusiasts room to keep model trains before being converted to a place to stay. Nearby was a  beach, which was pretty miserable with the wind howling around the place and rain, so no swims for Bill. 

The next few days were spent going up and seeing our daughter who lives up in Pukekura Bay.

Then to Napier. At Napier we had time to have a little drive around the town and go and see the museum. Onto the Napier to Taupo road, which I thought wouldn’t take very long at all but nearly all morning where we stayed at a little motel on the Lakeside.  Very nice but 70s feel, but still quite pleasant. Went for a walk around the lake a little bit. It was a nice little walk just on the lakeshore, shown here:

 Then it was back home to Auckland and rescuing a kitty cat from the cattery.