Jim Familton

I grew up in Dunedin and went to KETC and Otago University. I taught high school science for a few years in Dunedin and Canada and then became a stay home father as my wife's career was on the rise. I got interested in pottery and built my own kiln and also owned "Á Potters shop" that supplied all those things that potters need.

The art and craft scene in the Dunedin area was very good with regular exhibitions at the Dunedin Art Gallery, The Otago Museum, the Kobi Boshard Gallery, Shona McFarlane Gallery, Glenfalloch Gardens and other smaller galleries in the region. Neill Grant, Nicole Kolig, Michael Trumic, Beryl Jowett, Danny Morewood and Yvonne Sutherland and her Happy Hens, Robyn White, Toss Woollaston, Ralph Hotere, Joanne Paul, Marilynn Webb, Graham Sydney and many more were prominant. We had a modest art collection at home.

In the recent Covid years I attended Onehunga night school painting classes and after time painting still life, animals, abstracts, landscapes, beaches and waves I discovered Auckland's heritage buildings and spent a couple of years measuring and photographing those beautiful old buildings and using a ruler and set square to get them laid out on the canvas and then colouring them in. It took time to get the scale right. After a few months I soon realised that a computer would get the job done more precisely and copies and variations could easily be made.

There are about 80 Category 1 heritage buildings in Auckland and existing pictures of them often don't show the full image. They can be partially hidden by trees, power lines or cars. Drawings of the full facades are rare and often in black and white. When the roof is not visible from the street I have used Google maps.

Adobe Illustrator software does the job for me. There are many details on some buildings such as gargoyles, ornaments, sculptured parts, stained glass windows and sometimes the items are too small and don't show on an A4 page. A larger A3 image shows more detail.

As a long time member of the U3A and our architecture and art appreciation interest groups we have visited a variety of Galleries and historic places around Auckland over the past few years.