art cafe at K11

K11 is accessible from the underground passage between Tsim Sha Tsui and East Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station where our hotel Regal Kowloon is situated. K11 claimed to be the world's first art shopping mall and we did see a lot of design shops and public art installations at the mall. I had a good coffee and sketched the cafe when I got really tired with all the walking and looking.

view of Kennedy Town

I did a sketch from my son's apartment in Kennedy Town. I could see ppl and living quarters on the roof top of the old buildings just like what we saw in the Hong Kong movies.

Saturday dimsum brunch

Everytime when we visit our son in Hong Kong, he will bring us to City Hall Maxime's Palace, a Hong Kong institution for a hearty dim sum meal.

Cafe de Coral

Cafe de Coral or 大家樂 as it was normally called, must be the most popular local brand in Hong Kong when you think about Chinese style fastfood. We had our breakfast in Mongkok and we found one near the MTR station. I thought the customers were more tourists than the locals.

view from the hotel

View from my hotel Regal Kowloon. We stayed there on Friday night and we were trying to extend for another night but it would cost SGD600 so it was not worth it since we could use the money to do some eating and shopping and stay at my son's apartment in Hong Kong Island. I did this sketch while waiting for my husband to arrive from Guangzhou via ferry with his consultant team on an official trip. We later met up with my son who brought us to a very nice place for a very good fishhead steamboat dinner, a poplular Hunan dish.

Hong Kong skyline

My contribution from Hong Kong on last weekend when everyone in Urban Sketchers Singapore was working hard on a panaromic sketch of Club Street in Singapore on Saturday. Read Paul's great post here.

The air in Hong Kong was polluted so I really could not see the buildings clearly. I walked the entire stretch from one end to the other end and settled down with an icy coffee at Starburks at Avenue of the Stars. View from Kowloon towards Hong Kong Island.

In the air sketching

I went on a weekend trip to Hong Kong last Friday. I did the first sketch at Changi Airport on a new sketchbook I bought from Lisbon. The sketchbook was handmade by Ketta Linhares. You can follow her here. The second sketch was done in the air inside the Singapore Airline plane. It was shaking most of the time when I did this sketch. I just went with the flow with curvy wiggly lines.

mindless sketching

lots of work in the day so mindless sketching helps me to relax at dinner.

my shoes

Shoes are the most common subject for sketchers and here I am sharing mine. I started drawing the left shoe and half of the right shoe a few months back at a meeting. The ink dried up and I only completed this page recently in Sep 2011.

sketchwalk this month

Hi sketchers,

This month's sketchwalk will begin at 10AM at the sculpture outside URA Centre (Along Maxwell Rd.) We will walk up along Ann Siang Road and then along Club Street toward Far East Square. Pace is free and easy as usual. You may make your own detours whenever and wherever you like. We will regroup again at 1PM at Ya Kun coffeeshop located outside Far East Square for "show and tell." There are lunch places nearby. Closest MRT station to start point is Tanjong Pagar station. (See map for clearer picture.). You may continue to sketch in the afternoon after lunch with Edric Hsu who has a very good recommendation to have dinner at Nazt Bistro Lounge at Club Street after 6pm. Edric can be contacted at 96358132.

Please contact Paul 97923622 for more info or if you can't find us. If you come late, please find us along the route as mentioned. We will be there. See you this saturday!

USKSG on New Paper

pottery jungle

On Sunday, I felt that I should do a sketch today when sketchers in USKSG were working hard at Sentosa. Spread the sketching bug people!

at the library

Library is a good place to draw people. This guy caught my attention at the National Library with his long socks up to his knees. Since nobody wears long socks in Singapore, I am sure he is a tourist. Plus he has a nice paper bag next to him that I assume it is a shopping bag which a tourist would carry. Just guessing.

local food centre

It was a Sunday. Sheng Siong Food Centre at Jurong West was packed with lunch crowd. There were student hostels near-by so most of the customers were young men and ladies from China. This Singaporean father with twin sons were enjoying their food next to the wanton mee (dumpling noodles) stall. The stall was also selling roast duck, pork and char siew (braised pork). The stall was trying to extend their territory by placing two trolleys in front of the display counter. The food centre was cluttered, busy and noisy.

Devil's Brew at Rocky Master

At Rocky Master opposite the National Library. I had a simple spaghetti aglio olio and their special coffee - the Devil's Brew. The coffee was cold and the spaghetti a little too bland. I added lots of pepper and tabasco to taste. The family in my sketch left and another big group of Indian family walked in. They talked about the current legal cases in Singapore so they could be lawyers with the insider juicy stories which were more tasteful than my dinner. The sepia tones here were the Devil's Brew.

Pacific Coffee at Red Dot Museum

Last Friday, I took a half day leave to attend to the book project. A sketch at Pacific Coffee at Red Dot Museum before the meeting with URA did help to calm my nerve. Almost everyone in the cafe was working on a computer, the guy on the right in the sketch was talking on his mobile for quite a long time so I could sketch him. Two men in the photo below took over the seats left vacant by the guy in my sketch almost immediately.

lunch at Dian Xiao Er

I had two new portfolios to handle from 1 Sep, and like everything else, they were tough when you were new to the jobs. People around me assumed I could provide solutions immediately. I was unable to clear some of my work on schedule so I decided to drop everything and headed for a quiet place for lunch to take them off my mind for a while. After this sketch, I felt much better.

first page on a new sketchbook

After a stressful day, I like to relax with a cup of coffee at a quiet cafe. Local coffee shop can be too noisy and warm without air condition. Best of all, I can people watch and sketch the people that I spotted. These two young men walked in at different times but left at the same time after a drink. I was with my son who was studying next to me when I did this sketch.

This is also the first page on a new muji sketchbook.

Tisch School

Thanks Patrick Smith again for inviting us for another figure drawing session at NYU Tisch School of Arts Asia. The last round we went there was in April this year.

I was there

Respect for the fallen - On 26 Aug, 2001, 2 weeks before 911 tragedy, I was on top of world trade center.

collage of sketches for Aug

apples everywhere

I was trying to fill up the last page of the muji sketchbook so I did a sketch of my son at home. He was eating an green apple, his apple MacBook was by his side and he was sketching me with his apple iPhone.

Apples everywhere!

collage of sketches for July

My people and cafe sketches on Muji Sketchbook were interrupted in the month of May and Jun when the sketchbook was out of stock. So I restarted the Muji Sketchbook project in July. The cost of each sketchbook increased from S$4.90 to S$5.90, a 20% increase. These sketches were done primarily in July and all in one sketchbook.

lim chu kang jetty

Had not been filling up my Moleskine so last Saturday before the lantern festival celebration at the Thow Kwang Dragon Kiln, I took the opportunity to do one at the Lim Chu Kang Jetty. We went there to watch the sunset but we were too late and the sky was cloudy too. So many stray dogs and one of them even slept on the timber planks seemingly oblivious to passers by. Another stray dog jumped into one of the small motor boats and slept.

a simple meal at Pastamania

On Saturday, I was so tired after a stressful week so I decided to take good care of myself. I went to Alice, my hair dresser, spent almost 4 hours there to cut, colour and treat my stressful hair. People do not realise I have a history of serious hair problem almost ten years ago. Alice and her team carefully helped me to restore my hair condition after the advice and medication given by specialist doctor who said the condition was due to stress. Anyway, today my hair is in such good condition that Alice acclaimed "this bunch of hairs here is fizzy or curly but this part here the new hairs are straight...." Hey, ever heard of rebirth or self-generation? After visiting the hair salon, I went to Parkway for some shopping of ingredients for tonight's pot-luck function. Pastamania was popular with families with younger children. As usual, I just ordered simple aglio olio pasta and what else, a black coffee of course. The green ink I was using dried out so I took out another fountain pen that was filled with black ink and completed the sketch.

tcc at Clark Quay

Friday night was the Singapore Watercolour Society 42nd annual exhibition at MICA building. The standard this year was much higher than last year. I chatted with many senior watercolourists that I met when I was a teenager often along Singapore River where these senior watercolourists would congregate, drink coffee and paint on almost every Sunday morning. I was too tired so I headed home whilst my friends wanted to continue visiting museum night festival or visiting cafe. Before I picked up my car at Clay Quay, I aimlessly walked into the same tcc where I did a sketch last year. I found the sketch here. Interestingly the sketch last year was done after visiting the same exhibition.