A Study in Brown

A wheelie productive morning - Brett has nearly completed the Lotus's wheel (only one, but it's a big bugger) and I have completed the Bugatti's wheels. We supped a thick brown Cooper's Best Extra Stout & polished off some cream-coloured cheeses (Kaimai Mature Cheddar, Cheddar with black peppercorns & a Kapiti golden wash-rind soft Ramara).

My drawing is complete - it depicts a drag race between a supercharged Grand Prix Type 51 Bugatti (the last T51 built, driven by Geoffrey St John) and a Stampe et Vertongen SV4C biplane (which is very similar to a de Havilland DH82 Tiger Moth (Stampe was once a sales agent for de Havilland), piloted by Victor Norman). The race was a standing quarter mile - not surprisingly, the Bugatti completed the distance in 13.8 seconds whereas the Stampe took 16.3 seconds - and took place at a disused airfield in 1984.


And here is the JPS Lotus (with it's loose wheel)...

Long Weekend - Deja Vu

Labour Weekend, and the boys put in an intense two hours. A glass of cider (Mayer's Irish) & a couple of cheeses (Kaimai Mature Cheddar & Millel Parmesan) to help stimulate the Muses, but mostly hard work on pictures we are both enjoying.

Brett's new drawing is of Ayrton Senna in the JPS Lotus:


The Stampe SV4c is almost complete (although not in this image - it's undergone further work since the photo was taken) and the Bugatti is starting to be fleshed out:

Long Weekend - Day 2

Completed the Begg... This is a nice colour update of my old Black and White version. Been tricky to get the sign writing on the side correct but I think its OK now...
And the first one has already been bought by the current owner of the actual car - Calven Bonney!  so thats all good.

now whats next?  aha... thats a surprise....  keep watching..

Back we go!

No worries, Brett - this is a team event, after all.

My new drawing is also from the past - a race between a Stampe SV.4C and a Bugatti. More details of the race as I unearth them.


Not the best of images, but I am enjoying drawing this one.

Go the Blacks!!!

Woohoo... were in the finals!!!  trashed the Wobbilies!!!

Late night on the couch but worth it... The car flags stay on another week..

Oh yeah and we did some drawing.. This is my Begg progress. Just wish I knew what those damn decals were.

(sorry Warwick.. Ive leapt in again!)

As only Sport can be...

I knew if I hesitated, Brett would leap in and list all the sporting events for us. A very busy Sunday, but I managed to segue from the end of the first half of of the Boks v the Aussies to the end of Bathurst 1000 to the start of the second half of the Aussie v Boks without missing anything of importance.

DSG3059, the shunter, is complete...


and Brett's new drawing is the Begg 018...

Crazy TV weekend

As well as slobbering over large Messerschmitts we also managed a little drawing round the TV.. What with

• Bathurst
• Suzuka F1
• Ireland / Wales
• England / France
• South Africa / Australia
• All Blacks / Argentina

virtually ALL on at 6pm NZ time I was being a crazy surfing couch potato...
But I did manage to finish the Mustang and put it up for sale..  Warwick also majorly progressed his Shunter but I dont have a pic of that!

and Ive started my re-do of the Begg 018 in colour. Again Warwick has the image of the work in progress!

Phew!

Toys for the Boys

1:18 scale Bf-109G "Black Devil of Ukraine" that was flown by Erich Hartmann. Brett and I have one each, to accompany our F-4U Corsairs & Brett's P-51 Mustang. A beautifully detailed model.

Hartmann, with an amazing 352 confirmed victories, is the all time ace of aces. He did not attain his first victory until November 5, 1942 as he missed the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa, when many Luftwaffe pilots ran up amazing victory totals against an ill-equipped and relatively inexperienced Red Air Force. In the month of August 1943 Hartmann shot down 49 aircraft. After scoring his 148th victory, he was awarded the Knights Cross in October of 1943. In August of 1944, upon attainment of his 301st victory, Hartmann was awarded Germany's highest decoration, the Diamonds to his Knights Cross. Only ten Luftwaffe pilots received this decoration.

In combat, Hartmann was shot down twice and crash landed his aircraft on fourteen occasions. He was assigned literally dozens of different aircraft during the conflict. The Soviets nicknamed him The Black Devil of the Ukraine. A price of 10,000 Rubles was placed on his head. When the war ended, Hartmann was captured by the Soviets and was imprisoned for ten years. He was released in 1956, and rejoined the Luftwaffe with his former rank of Major. He learned to fly jet aircraft at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona. Hartmann served in the Luftwaffe until his retirement. He passed away in 1994 at the age of seventy-two.

Simply intuitive

[detail from a pencil drawing of Steve Jobs by Guillermo Contreras]

Simplicity. What happens inside your computer doesn’t matter - it's what you want to do that is important. And the interface should be simple and intuitive, freeing you up to be creative rather than wrestling with trying to understand or, in my case, remember, how to use it. Steve Jobs understood that and the iPod / iPhone / iPad devices are a testimony to that understanding. I succumbed & purchased an iPod Touch2 (leading, not bleeding edge - I've been in the computer industry far too long to buy first release kit). Brett was sceptical (I think) but soon realised it's potential & purchased a 3 (or 4) quickly followed by an iPad. It would seem most of our fellow commuters in the morning have one of the 3 iProducts. Let us hope that Apple continue with his vision.

'We' still have Jobs

Been a long week. Warwick swanning around at home on leave while I ride the red eye train every morning with the other grey beards..  and of course today was the end of the Jobs era at Apple!

But Ive done some more on the Muzzie and linked the blog to Twitter (check @faminz to follow me) and FB

Warwick seems to have had a very good week trains wise, at least 3 sold while Ive had one ebay, one trademe and one bidded on for next week. And that one will be interesting as I may have to now redo an old (3 decades old drawing to bring it up to my current standards). Have also had a nudge from the oil painting Skyhawk chap so thats floated to the top again too...  need more sleep!

any way, here's the Mustang..  Ill take orders now... lol

Religion is by no means a proper subject

Brett managed to get a firm grip on his pencils, despite his strenuous activities on Friday. However, he was troubled by the loss of a key player in the All Black team (the IRB 2011 Rugby World Cup is being held in God's Own at the moment), not helped by my wry and sardonic asides.

DSG3059, the shunter, is nearly finished - just a bit of fiddly grille work to be done (huh!)...



and the Mustang progresses: