A Balinese styled gateway at Gillman Barracks

Gillman Barracks is a former colonial military camp in Singapore that has been repurposed into a contemporary arts, lifestyle, and food and beverage cluster. Named after General Sir Webb Gillman, a well-known officer of the British Army, Gillman Barracks was built in 1936. It housed army barrack buildings, married quarters, and even recreational facilities, built specially for the British’s 1st Battalion before World War II.

We went to Gillman Barracks for our September sketchwalk and I did two pieces today both on square format at the meeting place which was the location for a relica Balinese styled gateway. It was called "Candi Bentar" in Bali and it was built when the area housed Villa Bali, a former Indonesian restaurant that has since closed down. Timbre Group operated at the same location from 2012 for about eight years before the current tenant Wheeler's Tropikana specialising in Australasian cuisine took over till now.

I started by splashing the white watercolour papers with blue for sky and orange for the Bali Gateway plus green and yellow splashes here and there. I then sketched the scene with fountain pens but all three pens run out of inks after first piece! So the second piece was done with watercolour brushes especially with a very small thin brush and no fountain pen, no ink work.

Daler Rowney Watercolour Papers
Size: 350 x 350mm