Cath Sheard Art

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  • And an aerial view

    This is a view of Mt Egmont that I guess relatively few people see – taken from the air. Incredible. If you fly from New Plymouth, my nearest airport, to Auckland – NZ’s largest city -you get spectacular views of Egmont as you fly past. Providing the clouds part that is 😉

    In my two libraries we also act as information centres, so deal with a lot of tourists keen to see the mountain. Especially after it was made famous by Tom Cruise filming The Last Samurai in the region. But the reality is that a lot of people passing through simply do not get to see her – because of cloud cover. Lots of cloud cover!

    This is another wee 4×4″ in acrylics on gallery wrap canvas, based on a photo taken on a clear day when there was no real cloud cover, and not a lot of snow either to be honest.

    Mt Egmont from the air, 4x4" in acrylics
    Mt Egmont from the air, 4×4

  • A bit less snow now

    But the mountain is still spectacular. I have completed another 4×4″ wee canvas in acrylics, again using one of my photos as a reference. mt-egmont-10

  • There’s plenty of snow on the mountain

    But it’s easily 20 degrees here again today. I am sure we don’t normally have this much snow left by mid November. I blame global warming.

    Anyway … I have been painting Mt Egmont ready to put some small works into Red Rock Cafe. Here’s the first one completed. Acrylic on 4×4 gallery wrap canvas.

    mt-egmont-9

  • New place to hang my work

    For the last 10 days or so I have had painting on display with the local Patchwork & Quilting exhibition as part of the annual rhododendron festival. There’s been 30 to 50 people through a day; good numbers for a rural town of 1,000. I took my Mum to see the exhibition yesterday and while I was there I was approached by the owner of Red Rock, a 7 day a week cafe here in town.

    Michelle has some art on sale already, but the only painting she has of Mt Egmont, our amazing mountain, is $500 — too much for the average passing tourist. The painting attracts a lot of attention though. She wondered if I could supply smaller, cheaper artwork featuring the mountain. Heck, yes – I love painting Mt Egmont. I’m going to start with some little acrylic 4x4s and them perhaps some 8x8s in oil.  

    In the meantime, here are some of my reference photos for you to enjoy.

  • Yes we can

    Okay, so I live on the other side of the world. In a different time zone. In a country about to have elections of its own. In a land 17 hours ahead of the USA. And yet, despite those differences, I feel like the world I live in changed today, changed for the better. And changed irrevocably.

    Today the people of the United States of America voted overwhelmingly in favour of Barack Obama for their new President. Leader of the most powerful and influential country in the world. Barack Obama; an African American President of the USA. The world has changed tonight.

    I keep a small 8×11″ scrapbook which is filled with personal stuff. How I feel about things, what is important to me, major events in my life. It has the day the Berlin Wall came down, the day the Princess of Wales died in a car accident. This weekend it will have the day the American people said “yes we can” to Barack Obama.