Another Cousin!

(I've got heaps of them).

No, not the Hobbit - the other guy.

Ken Hunt, and his wife Selina, came to see us yesterday. I've never met him before, I think, but he would be a 4th (?) cousins - our grandfathers were brothers.

Ken is an artist (http://kenhunt.org/) and so is his daughter Renee (http://reneehunt.org/) They live at Paraparaumu Beach, near Wellington.

I think that we both learnt some stuff and he had some great stories, the best of which was about the Lord of the Rings which he did some work for.

Ever wondered how they made the Hobbits look small while Gandalf etc were big? Apparently, there were two identical sets, one bigger, one smaller. They filmed the 'little' people in the big set and the 'big' people in the little set. The films were then blended together.

Ken was commissioned to paint portraits of Peter Jackson and his wife, done up as Bilbo Baggins and Belladonna Took. He had to show Peter without a beard, give him Hobbit ears and do two identical portraits, one bigger than the other, to hang on the wall inside the Hobbit's houses in the first movie.

He didn't enjoy the works because there was no inspiration involved, they had to be done as ordered and done twice. They were in the background in the movie and he thought that no-one would recognise who they were really of.

However, when Peter Jackson went up to recieve his award at the Academy Awards, there was a huge blow-up of the portrait behind the stage. Ken said that they were watching the awards on TV. His wife laughed but he cringed when he saw his work up there.

Great story!

I do like this game, never know who we're going to see next and the less in the mood I am, the more interesting the visitors are.

Who's next? Cheers