Off to Hong Kong

First time got a seat with ample leg room and sat next to a design graduate I taught around ten years ago. While she was sleeping on my right, I did a sketch inside the SIA cabin looking left. It felt like I was still sitting there watching.

Cool 360 view of a long sketch

Cool, FB made it into 360 view, love it, have fun clicking at the link below

Total 10 pages of a long sketch on one location for the recent Kuching trip capturing Jalan Main Bazaar, Waterfront, the new modern looking bridge, the new Sarawak State Legislative Assembly Building Petra Jaya Sarawak Malaysia and the Sarawak River plus the rehearsal for rescue operation on a Sunday morning!

Click to see 360 view of a panoramic sketch here at
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10159364870145244&l=2835516a42

Day 4 at Asia-Link Sketchwalk: Kuching 2017

Hong San Si Temple in Kuching

Read about this Hokkien temple is easily the finest temple in Kuching. It is just located opposite Marian, our hotel which stood on a small hill leased to the hotel by the Anglican Mission overlooking the undulating Sarawak River.

I was in Kuching to attend the 2nd Asia-Link Sketchwalk 2017 hosted by Urban Sketchers Kuching from 5 - 8 Oct, 2017.

Everyone was sitting outside the hotel fence sketching this temple, it must be one of the most sketched temples at the event. This long sketch took up 9 pages from the "Moleskine Japanese Album Large" concertina sketchbook and I just took photos of the long sketch in parts and stitched them in the computer. I have given up scanning long sketches.

Asia-Link Sketchwalk 2017 in Kuching

Asia-Link Sketchwalk 2017 in Kuching

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I am ready!

Robertson Quay

I was trying to travel really light with a sketchbook, a fountain pen, watercolours, a brush pen and a stool.

Thanks Patrick Ng for the ink refill. This piece took two reserviours of inks to complete and I only brought one fountain pen. So I started with splashing watercolours first rather than my usual ink work.

I used 6 pages in Seawhite concertina sketchbook Seawhite of Brighton, adding the balustrades and some details after the show and tell.

Family Lunch

Tasty Court today was crowded with 4 big tables of office workers having company lunch.

I observe the changes at this place in the neighbourhood and I am happy for this quiet corner at Jalan Tua Kong and Figaro St to be so lively again with this new restaurant by a famous chef.

Stewed rice vermicelli with seafood and supreme stock in opeh leaf is really good. We had the chef's special chicken last time so today we tried the duck in mango sauce, yummy!

www.facebook.com/Tasty-Court-by-Chef-Pung-718798384975248/

Self Portraits

Two self-portraits one with pencil and the other ink and wash. One with glasses and one without glasses both done after my cataract removal surgery which was on 23 Aug 2017. I am still trying to get used to the new vision which is not balance now since I only operated on the left eye. Meanwhile I am relying on wearing contact lens on the right eye only and I will need reading glasses for desk work. I am working with my eye doctor to have the other eye operated so that I can use my right eye to read without wearing reading glasses in the future. Right now I am also having clear and bright vision like seeing cool light in the operated eye and blur and yellowish like seeing warm light in the other eye.

September Sketchwalk at Robertson Quay

This weekend, we'll be swarming the former godowns of Robertson Quay. Named after Dr J. Murray Robertson, a prominent Municipal Councillor of colonial era Singapore, it is the largest and most upstream of the three main historical quays on the Singapore River, the other two being Boat Quay and Clarke Quay.

MEETING POINTS
9:30 am – Start at the roundabout end of Merbau Road
*between Bella Pasta and ROSSO VINO
https://goo.gl/maps/VL8iS8K4g1H2

12:30 pm – End at Robertson Bridge
*outside Limoncello Pizza & Grill
https://goo.gl/maps/4mwhPYDDF8p

These old warehouses, today integrated into newer developments, show another historic layer to an ever evolving Singapore River. Compared to the busy throngs of people further downstream, here the banks are much quieter, flanked by residences, hotels and laid back restaurants.

The Alkaff Bridge, painted by Filipino artist Pacita Abad, straddles the middle of the district, and gazetted godown buildings sit at Caseen Street, Merbau Road and Robertson Quay.

Little India

Adding details to an old sketch at Dunlop Street, Little India. No fountain pen for the first time.

My motivation for this piece? I always wanted to get the road signs in with no outline. That explains why the signes are almost in the centre.

Neighbourhood pizza place

Bakers&Cook is side by side with Plank, both operated by a celebrity chef Dean Brettschneider who also runs a baking and cooking school. My son joined me for dinner later and we met an old colleague of mine, what a day!

I Love our Local Coffee

The freshly brewed coffee here is S$1.70, black and thick just the way I like. The shop just added the glass door and glass shopfront for a new air conditioned interior but the glass door never shut properly for that kind of heavy traffic to the shop.

In the past, the local coffee used beans that were drum-roasted with sugar, margarine and maize. The beans were sticky, shinny in dark black brown before they were ground and brewed with a sock-like cotton strainer.

Teo's noodle at Bedok

It is weekend and such a long queue at Teo's noodle at Bedok. Everyone in the line was looking at the smart phone except a few middle-age aunties.

Must try since we were not in the hurry. I could also do a sketch while my hubby in this sketch in red top was waiting in line. The noodle was really good except getting a little salty towards the end, still yum! Will definitely come back again and again.

Even my other favourite local dish was seeing a even longer line. It was not too long a queue when I last visited the stall and did a sketch here

Good Vibes Only

My very first cup of coffee for the day at 1pm here at cafe called "Stamping Ground Coffee", no wonder I was feeling strange in the morning without my coffee. This cafe outside my house has a rather long name. There are only three big tables inside the shop but if you don't mind the heat, there are seats outdoor.

Good food, good coffee, hope I have a sketching company next time. Good Vibes Only!

First Outdoor Sketch after a brief hiatus

my demo piece for the students from LaSalle on a Saturday, so there were overlapping shapes, lines and washes here and there as I spoke.

As I talked about learning points for the students such as line qualities (thick, thin, continuous, broken lines), composition (mountain, valley, vertical, horizontal and oblique), tonal values (scale 0, 2, 5 , 8 and 10) and accent colours at 3 spots with washes, I finished a sketch with ink and washes.

This is also the first outdoor sketch after my eye surgery, such fun!

Pan Pacific and Conrad Hotel

I sat at the indoor cafe and looked through the window without wearing my sun glasses for the first time even it appeared to be very hot outdoor.

Sketching Pan Pacific Hotel on the right brought back fond memories. My office was involved in the Marina Square Master Planning in my first job as a junior and young architect in 1979. Pan Pacific Hotel together with Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Marina Mandarin Hotel were the first three hotels at Marina Centre designed by John Portman widely known for popularizing hotels and office buildings with multi-storied interior atria. I remember I saw John Portman briefly at the office boardroom and admired the large and detailed models at that time. I heard his sketches done on the spot were kept by the bosses and they were probably no where to be traced by now.

Within a short span of over 30 years, Marina Square at Marina Centre is now fully developed with so many new hotels and mega malls sprouting out here and there, Portman's hotels still stand timeless and modern in this cluttered world of new buildings.

On the left is the relatively newer luxurious Conrad Hotel designed by another famous American architect, Philip Johnson. Far left is Millenia Tower by Kevin Roche, Pritzker Prize winner. All such luxurious and expensive buildings.

View from the Library

This is the view from the Marine Parade Public Library. You can spot the Church of the Holy Family easily from the low rise surroundings. The entire stretch of land opposite the library is currently under construction for the new Thomson East Coast Line (TEL) so it was boarded up and construction equipment are seen everywhere. The TEL will open in 5 stages from 2019 onward, and interchanges with all existing lines. Across the Library will be the Marine Parade Station which is under stage 4 scheduled to open in 2023. Another 6 years!

More information on TEL at https://www.lta.gov.sg/content/ltaweb/en/public-transport/projects/tel.html

Sunday Breakfast

So many uncles gathered together at the coffee shop for Sunday breakfast, are their wives at the wet markets nearby?

The old uncles spoke so loud about a ghost story at the old Tampines Road and used phrases like ”电脑合成” (digitally manipulated) and other proper Chinese terms rather than mixtures of Mandarin and English or Singlish, I was impressed.

Craftmen Specialty Coffee at Siglap

I am on long medical leave for my eye op, its the best period to explore neighbourhood cafe since I only have 2 hours before the next eye drop which has to be stored in the fridge at home. Here is a very good write up about the cafes in Siglap written in Feb 2015 and updated in Aug 2016 https://ordinarypatrons.com/2015/02/07/cafes-siglap/. I found out that one of them, FLAVA Asia Bistro and Grill, had already closed recently.

Food was very very good at Craftsmen though I hope the long black could be a little stronger. Illustration on guide to coffee was excellent and professionally drawn on top of the red coffee machine.

Starbucks again

Added digitally colours later. It was quiet at Starbucks because it was a Monday when students were not here today.

Starbucks at Siglap

Added colours today, can't gauge the correct hues and tones yet but I wanted to remember this interesting neighbourhood.

I noticed people were queuing up at the shop opposite the road for a few Sundays. I overheard from a customer at Starbucks it was for free whiskey. The crowd made noise and whistle that i could hear across the road at Starbucks. I checked it out online it's was for 'fight week' on TV! The crowd started early in the morning and they were mostly Caucasian men at Bambooze Tarven having some fun times over TV with free drinks after spending $20!

East Coast Road and Upper East Coast Road

So bored at home after my eye op that I went to Starbucks near to my home. I could not get a seat indoor as this outlet was known for students 'chopping seats' to study for the whole day. I ordered a hot drink and sat outside the shop and watched and tried the 'art of doing nothing'. This neighbourhood is so interesting. I remember it used to have two road sign plates 'Upp East Coast Rd' and 'East Coast Rd" on ONE post but I saw two separate road sign posts now.

Does it mean the road between the two road sign posts have no road name? HA!

August Sketchwalk at Tanglin Halt

Tanglin Halt is an iconic old estate that holds a special place in the memories of many residents of Singapore.

MEETING POINT
Boardwalk at Food Centre
3A Commonwealth Drive
Singapore 141003
https://goo.gl/maps/V5REuzESXDt

9:30 am — Sketch leaders kick off with a short intro
12:30 pm — Gather for "sketch gallery" to gawk at everyone's work

The estate is in the middle of a seven-year decommissioning, at the end of which much of it will be razed by 2021–2024.

Lots of food, quaint shops, old-school things and big mature trees to take shade under. Enjoy your visit!

Credit: sketch of old-school shopfronts by Francis Theo.

P.s.: We're going to Tanglin Halt this weekend, although Raffles Hotel won in the poll, as access to the building might get more restricted by the weekend.

Adding Tones

This was done earlier of the year but grey tones added later. Nothing changes for the cafe interior except the people and perhaps the menu. I will be going for my cataract surgery on Wednesday, not sure my sense of tonal values and colour intensities will change after that.

Poolside Sketch

I sketched Steffi, my younger granddaughter as she posed for me at the poolside. I had to add Nicole, my elder granddaughter next to Steffi later when she was looking for herself in the sketch. My younger son was making the 'V' sign on the yellow float and the princesses were telling stories pointing at the young uncle. So fun.

Total 8 pages Seawhite Concertina Sketchbook. This sketch got the family talking during the vacation, we are making memories together.

Village Cafe

Very tired today and didn't feel like going out of office for lunch. So I went to Village Cafe in the office building for a nice hot soup and sandwhiches and finished up a sketch I started long long time ago on the last page of the Moleskine Japanese Album.

It is truly a celebrations of diversity when you see students and staff of different ethnicity and background in the cafe. Sometimes we have overseas visitors from Loas, Cambodia, Japan, Finland and many more.

Vacation Trip to Vietnam

It's a family vacation in Lang Co, Vietnam. We spent real quality time with my two granddaughters aged 5 and 3 who are staying in Hong Kong. We spent 7 days together from 4 to 11 Aug in Lang Co, Hoi An, Da Nang and Hue. We are building family memories together and some are collected in this long Seawhite Concertina Sketchbook.

at the airport

Going to meet the two princesses for a family holiday in Vietnam, spending quality time with them and may not sketch much. One sketch at the departure hall and splashed some coffee later plus sticking something to remember like Jetstar flight details etc.

Visitors here at PUAL inside the airport lounge are very well groomed with branded handbags for ladies and expensive wrist watches for men.

I may look out of place with my t-shirt and jeans but who cares, I am on vacation.

9th USK Symposium will be in Porto, Portugal in 2018

office meeting

Monday office meeting in a room filled with boxes of images of ASEAN after our Global Community Day event. Everyone was working on laptops as the boss read from the paper.

It's ASEAN50 this year. We just completed an event and these are the boxes with ten flags of ASEAN countries. There are (from the top left): Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Loas, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand.

my favourite local dish

Two popular dishes are found next to each other at Bedok Food Centre.
Chwee Kueh or 水粿 is a type of steamed rice cake. To make chwee kueh, rice flour and water are mixed together to form a slightly viscous mixture and served with diced preserved radish and and chilli sauce.
Soon Kueh or 笋粿 is a dumpling-like cake filled with fragrant mixture of shredded bamboo shoots, turnip and dried shrimps wrapped in a smooth rice-tapioca flour skin.
These are cheap and good local dishes and the chwee kueh here is very big and very soft - double the size of the usual size found in other food centre.
When I was little, the chwee kuehs were steamed in clay moulds but it was changed to aluminium moulds in the 70s by the National Environment Authority.

old canteen on campus

A quick bite at the canteen before class in one morning. This is a very old canteen at School of Engineering. The noodle stall uncle told me it will be closed for renovation in September and he does not wish to continue because of the new tendering system.

I also met a student I taught in a subject called "Heritage, Museum and Trails" and we had a good chat over the common problems faced by the current young people in general.

New management, new style, new world everywhere. Time to move on!

8th Urban Sketchers Symposium in Chicago

This bring back fond memories as Gabi mentioned about my email to him in 2008 at 25:08 to be a USK sketch correspondent reporting from Singapore. I remember I had to upload all my old sketches on the Flickr for Gabi to see as we need to 'show the world one drawing at a time'.

July Sketchwalk at Telok Ayer Street

This Saturday we'll be at Telok Ayer Street and the adjacent Amoy, Stanley and Boon Tat streets.

Sanwiched between Ann Sinag Hill and the skyscraping towers of Shenton Way, the area has two of the oldest places of worship in the city— Thian Hock Keng temple and Masjid Al-Abrar—along with many conserved shophouses and buildings, like Nagore Dargah.

We will start and end at Telok Ayer Green, a little pocket of coolness in the middle of the precinct. See you there!

MEETING POINT
Telok Ayer Green
https://goo.gl/maps/G4G7MKcuSMp
09:30 am: Kick off for new participants
12:30 pm: Gather for "gallery gawk" and see all works

same same but different

Same cafes but different sketches.

It's Sunday again

Consecutively the 3rd Sunday I was at this cafe but this time to sip my very first coffee of the day over a piece of oneh cake at around 4pm. The bald head Caucasian man at the back was playing chess with a young boy presumably his son.

There are story behind this sketch too that I was sketching in pain on my right cheekbone coz I had a fall and hit the bath tub the night before after a blast in sketch outing at ORTO in Yishun with the gang in the morning.

My face is very very round now and my right cheek is still painful but manageable, lah.

sketching at the POD

We were up at the POD, 16th storey of National Library Board building to sketch the skyline two days ago. It was the reward for the organising team after the USK10x10+ASEAN50 event. This coloured piece was meant to be a warming up sketch before the panoramic sketch and trying to put my old tools to good use.

paper: Cartiera Magnani, 300gsm, 100%cotton
pen: Uni-ball Signo Gelstick 0.7 black
colour: W&N watercolours
brushes: Raphael flat brushes size 12

Sunday Brunches at the same cafe

USK10x10+ASEAN50 video on final day by Parka

Last Day of USK10x10+ASEAN50

Here is my sketch on the last day of USK10x10+ASEAN50 programme amidst running around as part of the organising team for the event. I started the sketch from the last page of the Seawhite concertina sketchbook since it is the end of the road on the right. The Majestic Hotel on the left of the sketch is under renovation, I will go back to sketch when the renovation is completed.

USK10x10+ASEAN50

“USK10x10+ASEAN50” – a sketching event and “We Draw ASEAN Together” – an art exhibition

In a collaboration with International Relations Department of Temasek Polytechnic, Urban Sketchers Singapore presented USk10x10+ASEAN50, a week-long series of workshops and activities celebrating the ten-year anniversary of the global Urban Sketchers community that also commemorated the golden jubilee of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. It is also held in conjunction with Global Community Day 2017 held at Glocal Connect Village at Temasek Polytechnic.

These milestones were observed together in an eight-day programme from 1 to 8 July, where about 100 participants signed up for over 10 workshops, as well as a mass sketchwalk kicked off from the URA Centre that saw 150 sketchers from ASEAN cities drawing Ann Siang Hill and Club Street on the final day of the programme.

7 instructors from Southeast Asia cities and 5 instructors from Singapore were engaged to conduct 10 workshops and mass sketchwalk at about 10 indoor and outdoor locations namely Temasek Polytechnic, Waterloo Street, Queen Street, Urban Redevelopment Authority, Kampong Glam, The POD at National Library Board, Little India, Chinatown, Bukit Pasoh, Club Street and Ann Siang Hill. While the workshops and the final mass sketchwalk were creating an opportunity with regional and global reach; an exhibition with about 200 sketches were mounted at the Art Gallery at Glocal Connect Village, Temasek Polytechnic entitled “We Draw ASEAN Together” showcased the ASEAN instructors’ work alongside submissions from sketchers in the region. We are expecting around 1000 visitors to the ArtGallery@GCV when the exhibition ends on 31 August, 2017.

More details can be found at http://10x10.usk.sg

USK10x10+ASEAN50 video on opening day by Parka