The Three Mountains, central North Island New Zealand

Mount Tongariro

 

Last Tuesday we were returning to Kapiti from Taupo, the Desert Road was closed by ice and snow and so we took a detour around the back of the Mountains and I took a few photos.

It was a beautiful clear day, but obviously a huge dump of snow had fallen on the mountains and the surrounding area on the previous day and night.  This photo shows the Mari crater on  Mt Tongariro, showing continuous wide bursts of white smoke and steam

 

 

 

 

 

This photo shows Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe with its' distinctive cone.

When we turned and looked in the other direction we could see Mt Taranaki far away on the West Coast.

 

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective

 

 



Fishing for Art around New Zealand

The Last Moki

Ko te hopu whakamutunga o te ika

 

 

Moki is a trumpeter fish which is found around the Kermadec Islands, the Three Kings Islands to Snares Islands, the Chatham Islands and Auckland Islands but rarely further North.  I have used the Moki as a token species to represent the sorry state of our fishing industry world wide.

We watch the plunder of our oceans by factory ships where waste is just part of the process and threatened species are taken alongside the commerical catch. 

Pollution is one of many other issues which I cannot hope to address with one small art work but I have made a start on it.

 

 

These fish are knitted with embroidery silk and measure up to 12cms long, I am making a large number of them.

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective blogspot

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

 

 

 

 

 



A Mantua from New Zealand

A Mantua from New Zealand

 

I recently made some more photographs for my Mantle series, this one I think of as being a New Zealand mantua as it shows a tropical  palm leaf on the dress.

 

 

 

 

This one shows specifically the  Pacific Ocean.

 

 

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective blogspot

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

 

 

 

 

 



Rare White Heron in Thames New Zealand

The Kotuku or White Heron

 

 

We saw this rare and beautiful bird last Tuesday as we were passing through Thames on the Coromandel Coast in the North Island.  It is a large bird and it floated in to land on an old fishing vessel on the intertidal mud flats. .

 

 

The mud flats provide a habitat for mangroves which are prolific around the Hauraki Gulf.

There were not many other birds around, some pied shags and a few ducks so it was a great surprise

to see a kotuku.  They only breed on the West coast of the South Island so it had travelled some

distance.

 

 

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective blog

 

 

All images copy right Frances Jill Studd 2015

 

 

 

 



A Garden Painting from New Zealand

A Friend's Garden

 

 

This painting was made from the view in a friend's garden which backs onto an area of New

Zealand bush.  On the left there are Black Mamaku tree ferns which can grow to

twenty metres, they have a distinctive curled frond before they unfold into their large umbrella branches.  It is the tallest of our native tree ferns.

In the foreground is a large red flax and in front of that a patch of blue iris which seem to become

a dark purple when viewed against the flax.

 

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective Blogspot

 

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

 

 

 

 



More Garden Paintings from New Zealand

More Garden Paintings

 

Here are my two latest garden paintings, they will form a series eventually.

 

 

They are made from wild roadside verges which provide food for

many of our insects and birds as well, while looking at them I am

struck by how often the small things which we miss are so important.

 

 

A patch of weeds like this can be teeming with life which

goes by barely noticed.  Hovering around here were blue dragonflies, bumble

bees and some little blue butterflies.

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective blogspot

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

 

Settler's Cottage in New Zealand

The Settler's Cottage at Mahana

 

Last week we visited the Settler's cottage at Mahana near Upper Moutere in the South Island.

The cottage was built in 1859 for an English couple, George and Cornelia Harvey, it was built for them in eleven days.  It seemed to be a typical sod cottage but I was struck by how large it is, it had several rooms downstairs and even a garage on the side for the family buggy.

 

 

 

 

Originally it only had two rooms downstairs, the kitchen dining area and the master bedroom.  An attic area was later used as additional sleeping quarters. The other rooms and the garage were added later by a new owner

 

 

 

 

The walls were made from a mixture of local clay, grasses and water - they are about 48 to 61cms thick. By the begining of the First World War the cottage was in the hands of  the Bensemann family, who belonged to the German settlement of Sarau or Upper Moutere.

 

 

 

 

The cottage is now maintained by The Somerset Farm Settler's Cottage Trust, they have done

a wonderful job of re-thatching and setting up the displays.  The following photograph

shows some of the surrounding land and just what a hot and dry Summer we have had.

 

 

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective Blogspot

 

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015