Portland watercolour pieces

I am back from the most amazing 3-day Urban Sketching Symposium in Portland.

My sketches of Portland are on three different types of format. One is the regular moleskine (A6 size), the other one is the special USK moleskine (A5 size). Finally the long watercolour format (400x200mm). Here are the three watercolour sketches on the long format I did on each different day plus some photos taken at the Symposium.

More sketches and photos at my flickr.


Day 3 at Portland Farmers Market I did the Simon Benson House, Urban Colour group


Day 2 at Ire Keller Fountain, Urban Nature group


Day 1 at Cargo Store near PNCA, Urban Colour group


Day 1 to 3 on USK moleskine

first sketch in Portland

We heard so much about the story of food carts in Portland, so when Liz and I saw one after depositing our lugguages at the Mark Spencer Hotel, we sat comfortably at the corner of Burnside Street on 4th Avenue and started sketching. Lapin was sketching the classic car and Will, the owner of the car in the vicinity too.

King Station, Seattle

I did a sketch before departure from King Station, Seattle to Union Station, Portland on Wednesday, 28 July 2010. Here is the quick sketch of the beautiful station. I added the colours during the train journey.

photo of the presenters at the symposium

Before I am swamped with work in the office and before scanning my sketches of Portland, this is the picture of all the presenters (except Kurt Hollomon from PNCA) taken from Lapin's post at the recent first International Urban Sketching Symposium in Portland from 29 to 31 July 2010.

From left standing are : Simo, Jason, I, Isabel, Matt and Veronica.
From left sitting are : Gabi, Lapin and Frank Ching.

Meanwhile, you can visit the symposium website to find out more.

meeting Bill Gates by chance

Bill Gates was sitting next to our dinner table in a restaurant called Six Seven at Edgewater Hotel in Seattle. We were there watching the sunset while having our dinner before flying home tomorrow. He autographed one of my sketches done during the train journey from Portland to Seattle. It was our lucky day. See the bottom of the sketch!

This post was sent from Hotel Max, Seattle.

the day we met for the very first time

On Tuesday, 27 July 2010, for the very first time, I met up with other USK Correspondents for dinner at Steelhead Diner, Pine Street, Seattle. It was the very first time that we were able to relate the personalities to all those sketches we were all too familiar with on Urbansketchers website. Lapin started sketching Gerard and soon after, it became a portrait sketching session at the dinner table. We were later requested by the restaurant to move to another table so they could form a bigger table for a large group of diners. For that, we were rewarded with three free delicious deserts while we continued to sketch each other over beer and coffee. When were were done with the indoor sketches, we went to the viewing deck to sketch the views of the waterfront. Here are the photos and two sketches I did that evening.

Bell Street Pier, Seattle

Last Sunday sketching with USK-Seattle group here in Seattle was exciting. We met at the iconic Bell Street Pier 66 and the view at this overhead pedestrian bridge was breathtaking. The view was nice but it was hot standing on the bridge to sketch so I chose a shady spot next to the Anthony's restaurant and did this piece.

The place was crowded with the holiday makers waiting to board the cruise ship 'Norwegian Pearl' docked at Pier 66 heading to Alaska on a bright Sunday morning. It is gone by now so the view is quite rare for Seattle sketchers more so for me, a Singaporean sketcher.

If I have another week in Seattle with no other plan, I probably would buy a ticket and board the cruise liner to Alaska for a 7-day long holiday!

airport in transit

As some of you already known, I will be attending the first International Urban Sketching Symposium at Portland from 29 to 31 July 2010. I am now at a hotel in Seattle sending this sketch I did at Narita Airport, Tokyo in transit from Singapore to Seattle.

For me, it was hard to sleep on the plane and I don't remember having any good sleep ever on any flight. So for almost 20 hours, I was awake most of the time! It is 10.20am here in Seattle now and my body clock has yet to adjust to local time. I am trying to rest well to prepare for this weekend as it should be fun exploring Seattle with a Sunday skechcrawl together with the local Seattle sketchers. Till then.

sketch walk to mark the end of the exhibition

Today we had the community sketch walk to mark the end of our exhibition. The response was overwhelming. Thank you everyone for your support. It was really fun to sketch together. I did three watercolour pieces at different locations.

interesting people at earshot

On Tuesday, I brought my class to Boat Quay for a drawing trip again. Some of us also visited the Asian Civilization Museum as the entry fee was now FREE for staff and students from Schools, Junior Colleges and the Polytechnics. I later went to the nearby cafe called Earshot at Art House for coffee. The cafe was preparing for a writers' night with two technicians setting up of microphones and projector next to my table. A lady came to tell the technicians to lower the volume as she was conducting an interview. It caught my attention that I put down my book and looked at the lady. She was Irene Ng, our lady MP! I was curious who was she interviewing so I moved to another seat and realized she was interviewing our ex-Permanent Secretary - Mr Ngiam Tong Dow. Don't ask me about their conversation because I did not pay attention to that since I was more concerned about finishing the sketch and leaving as soon as possible so as not to incur more parking charges for my car which was parked about 1km away at Golden Shoe; a public car park. The parking fee was $17 this time. The last time I brought the students out, the parking fee was $28. 'Ouch!'

another sketch at meeting

Had to sketch this with such lively discussion among 2 ladies and so many gentlemen round the table. I prefer to sit at the back and sketch so I keep myself awake and attentive.

cold crabs for lunch

My son who works in Hong Kong returned to Singapore and spent a few days with the family during the father's day weekend. We went to Lee Do Restaurant for lunch before he flew off in the evening. One of their specialities is the Fuzhou Cold Crab. We ordered one to try before the main course and it was really good with its firm texture best enjoyed in chilled condition. It was so delicious that we had to order another bigger cold crab to satisfy our quest. We were all having a 3-quarter full stomach when the main dishes arrived, we had to ask for the last dish to be packed and taken away.

The cost for the two cold crabs took up half of the entire bill but it was an memorable gastronomic experience.

exhibition featured on sparklette

Our exhibition featured on Sparklette, local website on food, wine, travel and lifestyle.

my article on civic life

my article on Civic Life.

Civic Life: Tiong Bahru is a major project exploring identity, architecture, memory, community, a sense of place and civic space, unfolding over 2010. The project is driven by National Museum of Singapore, British Council and Arts Council England.

sketchers in the local news

Today is a off day for me that I was still on bed in the morning when my daughter came to my room to tell me there was a write up about me and the exhibition. This time, there is a mention of urban sketchers and Gabi, the founder.

nice sport cars

Too much buzz on the recent exhibition "Outside-In: Sketches of Tiong Bahru" already. For a change, I post this sketch of the nice cars when I sent my car for servicing last month. It was raining like cats and dogs that I was grounded at the service centre and worked on my laptop. I cleared many official documents and emails for the whole morning after sketching. When I came back to the office in the afternoon, little did I know that that was the same morning Orchard Road was flooded. I was so lucky as my car service centre was in the flood prone area too - Tan Chong at Bukit Timah. What a day!

overwhelming response

Thank you so much for coming down to the opening of the exhibition on sketches of Tiong Bahru on Wednesday. We were caught unprepared by the overwhelming response at the opening night and I really wish I could spend more time with my dear friends who came to the show. I was also pleasantly surprised too that my pieces were selling fast even before the opening by walk-in visitors according to the gallery. My apologies to friends and supporters for not able to get the piece that you wanted. Your support will propel me to work harder in promoting the art of location drawings. I also want to thank the following groups of people:
1. My family members especially my father who came, for their love,
2. Colleagues, students, graduates from Temasek Polytechnic for the support,
3. Urbansketchers, OIC and weekend sketchers for the inspiration,
4. My buddies from Thow Kwang Pottery Jungle and their friends for the encouragement,
5. My buddies from senior NJC Chinese Orchestra (yes, I play the pipa) for listening,
6. My architect friends for teaching me to see and feel....
7. and you who are reading this...thank you!

Thank You