Colouring in: The Doves

Colouring in: The Doves

This wood engraving by Eileen Mayo was created by carving the picture onto a block of wood. Eileen was known for her great skill at doing this. She then used a roller to put a thin coat of ink onto the carved wood and pressed it onto paper to make this print. Have you ever tried making a print by carving something like a potato and then applying ink or paint and pressing it onto paper?

Colouring in: Toroa / Northern Royal Albatross

Colouring in: Toroa / Northern Royal Albatross

Did you know that the Toroa (also called the Northern Royal Albatross) is the world's largest seabird? Where do you think they live? Take a look this live web feed of a chick for a clue...

Colouring in: Doric Dairy

Colouring in: Doric Dairy

In the old days, milk was delivered to people's homes by horse and cart. The milk was ladled into tin pots (called billies) from a big metal urn. Can you find the urn where the milk is kept in this linocut? What colour is it?

Loud Calls the Voice of Reason by Archibald Baxter

Loud Calls the Voice of Reason by Archibald Baxter

Archibald Baxter's call to reason is kindly read by Kim Bathgate.

Sarah's Train by Elizabeth Smither

Sarah's Train by Elizabeth Smither

Today's handwashing poem comes from the sequence of verse called Sarah's Train by Elizabeth Smither. Sarah in the poem is Sarah in the painting.

This one is for all of you have been looking after children for the last four weeks. One of those is the reader, our registrar Gina Irish. We salute all parents who have got through this ordeal.

 

Contemplative Art Play With Nature

Contemplative Art Play With Nature

Thank you Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, for inviting me to contribute this art and wellbeing post. I would like to share with you one of my favourite therapeutic arts making activities, which is suitable for all ages. I call it contemplative art play, and since we are all in our bubbles (or extended bubbles when we move to level 3), I have added an additional layer of wellbeing into the process – nature.

Île de la Cité by Charles Brasch

Île de la Cité by Charles Brasch

Paris seems further away than ever when all we see at present are the streets we can reach on foot. But with the help of two Charleses, Brasch and Meryon, we can perhaps fancy ourselves there again. Paris and its cathedral are no strangers to loss and suffering and we all hope for better times in the future.

Today our Education and Visitor Programmes Team Leader Lana Coles takes us to the banks of the Seine for just under a minute. Just long enough to...you know the drill.

Colouring in: Kākāriki Karaka / Orange-fronted Parakeet

Colouring in: Kākāriki Karaka / Orange-fronted Parakeet

This small painting is of one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s indigenous birds, kākāriki karaka (aslo called the orange-fronted parakeet). It was made by Eileen Mayo in the 1970s along with 34 others for a set of cards that could be collected in packets of Gregg’s Jellies.

City Gasworks, Christchurch by Doris Lusk

City Gasworks, Christchurch by Doris Lusk

If you grew up in Christchurch before the city’s gasworks was decommissioned in 1982, you'll almost certainly remember the grimy industrial building that dominated the scene next to the Waltham Street overbridge. It was maybe the most industrialised site in the city, where dirty columns of smoke bellowed out from chimney stacks signalling coal being fired to create gas for residents and businesses. It was a subject that captivated painter Doris Lusk. She had previously painted the Dunedin Gasworks in around 1935, and also turned her hand to painting many other industrialised sites – hydroelectric stations, Christchurch’s Pumphouse, sluice mines at St Bathans, the wharf at Onekaka, and numerous roads and railways slicing their way through the green countryside.

Prepare by Ursula Bethell

Prepare by Ursula Bethell

Lead curator Felicity Milburn reads the poem Prepare by Ursula Bethell

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