Katie Hedgman-Dalton is producing a series of cards with ink drawings of local buildings and landmarks. Photo / Paul Brooks
Katie Hedgman-Dalton is producing a series of cards with ink drawings of local buildings and landmarks. Photo / Paul Brooks
Katie Hedgman-Dalton finished her second year of a Bachelor of Design and Art at UCOL in July and has embarked on a project guaranteed to interest a lot of Whanganui people.
She is creating a series of postcards featuring the city's landmarks faithfully recreated in ink.
It's a combined effort,with her husband Kyle Dalton and his knowledge of Whanganui history, and her artistic talent.
"I was talking with Billie [Lawson] at the i-Site and she drew my attention to the fact that there weren't a lot of local content postcards. There are generic New Zealand ones for overseas travellers, but very few Whanganui ones," says Katie.
"So I decided to have a go at drawing buildings." The first one she drew was the Durie Hill Memorial Tower.
"Most of the buildings are from the perspective of someone looking up at them, because that's how I see them, because I scud so close to the ground."
She has drawn the two towers, a range of buildings, as well as scenes that are made up of a collage of drawings.
One view takes in the central plateau mountains, both towers, Braeburn, the Tram Shed and tram, the pencil sculpture, the Wairua, the Waimarie, Dublin Street Bridge, kayaks on the river, the Riverboat building, City Bridge, the Durie Hill elevator tunnel and top structure, Durie Hill steps, the Bearing sculpture, the kereru sculpture, the Moorings sculpture, Kowhai Park and more. Katie has added foliage and greenery (in monochrome) to soften the abundance of straight lines.
There are stand alone buildings with historical or architectural significance.
Huge amounts of finely reproduced details are a hallmark of the illustrations.
The cards are stocked by Whanganui i-Site, Whanganui Regional Museum, Sarjeant Gallery, and Kyle will be approaching other places around town.
"It's done in conjunction with Whanganui History and Heritage," says Katie, "Because the idea is that we will produce an illustrated book. Before we lose too many more of our heritage buildings I'd like to get them down in ink.
"I caught the history bug off Kyle, and I want to honour buildings and places. They're just structures, but because I've lived here my whole life, they're almost like touchstones, a sense of home."
The Whanganui series will be available as postcards, gift cards and A5 prints.
Katie has also produced a range of ink-drawn flax kete cards and hares she had for Artists Open Studios earlier this year.
The hares are made up of newspaper pages — "Hares the news" — and are available as gift cards.
