Coffee Splashes again

It was raining outside and we needed to shop for a kids' party tonight to celebrate mid-autumn festival, so we headed to Food Republic at the basement of Parkway Parade for breakfast before shopping.

Did a quick line sketch with coffee splashes while hubby queuing for food. These two foreign kids had beautiful curly hairs that attracted me. The elder boy was playing a very small and old hand-held game while his sister was disturbing him. It reminded me of my two granddaughters when they were fighting most of the time at the dinner table.

As usual, people forming a line to buy coffee and food at Toast Box next to our tables are also phubbers, phub = phone + snub, people who are swiping their handphones according to Oxford Dictionaries.

I am using my old trusted Moleskine Concertina Sketchbook again and gel pen, yes not fountain pen. Back to basic sketching gear.

Molekine Japanes Album Large
Size: 390 x 210mm

Sam Leong Road

Sketching at Sam Leong Road with sketcher friends. Hope this row of beautiful shophouses will be preserved. the surrounding has since changed a lot. Hightrise buildings are sprouting up in this neigbourhood very quickly.

Seniors at Food Court

The old aunty in my sketch sitting at opposite table must be a regular at the foodcourt. So many other seniors greet her when they walked pass her. In fact, there are so many seniors or retirees sitting there without ordering food. These are the savvy seniors who know where to rest, eat, kill time and meet people. I will probably do the same when I get older and find nothing else to do.

The tourists are returning

Tourists are returning to Singapore. You hear them speaking foreign language at the next table at meal time. You see them with their hand luggage. You observe they are all wearing hats, sunglasses and scraves. This is a family from Indonesia.

Breakfast place

This was drawn recently in May before going to Thow Kwang Pottery Jungle. I like the coffee at this place and I will always takeway kopi O, kopi, teh and teh halia for my potter-friends. Today I know this food court I frequent a lot is called Food Master Food Court instead of Sheng Siong Food Court.

Round Market at Tampines

Line Sketch

Dinner at Rasapura, very sketchable family beside me. I really enjoy quick observation line sketching with quality of lines, no colours, no tonal values.

Parkway Parade

Its Xmas and the baby was just in front of me waiting to be sketched during lunch time at Parkway Parade basement food court.

Sketching Lunch Crowd

Capturing the moment and sketching fast during lunch crowd. We went back to Rasapura again and this group of Taiwanese tourists were eating Bak-Kut-Teh (Pork Rib Soup) and kept going back to the stall for more soup. They were also sharing a plate of durian flavoured ice kachang - our local dessert made from crushed ice with syrup and jelly poured on top. They were still there when I left after food and sketching.

Bedok 216 Hawker Centre

Bedok 216 Hawker Centre is a typical market cum food centre in the east. Very popular and it is now connected to all the other amenities in Bedok Central such as Bedok Mall, Bedok Heart Beat and Bedok Town Square. It was a Monday so many food stalls were closed but it was still crowded with residents looking for breakfast.

BreadBoard - campus canteen

Two very hip looking students at BreadBoard, our canteen at School of Engineering. They had coloured hairs, one in light purple and the other one in light pink.

Roti Prata Stall on the Campus

First sketch of July. On the right is the Indian Muslim stall selling delicious Roti Prata at BreadBoard, our campus food court. It is also here i learnt about a dish called "Roti Plaster" - it is a plain prata with a egg on it styled like sunny-side-up which is different from egg prata with egg inside the flour.

Lunch at FoodFare - A Social Enterprise

This lunch place is just opposite my institution at the new HDB block 878A. NTUC Foodfare is set out to be a different kind of business - established by the Labour Movement in 1995, with the primary purpose to serve working people and their families by stabilising cooked food prices and helping them improve their quality of life. To me, the price is not much different from the other food establishment and the quality is just acceptable. There are also new initiatives such as cashless payment. The self service machine you see in my sketch is now a white elephant. Automation in this country still have a long way to go.

Malaysian Food Street at Sentosa

This is the first time I visited Malaysian Food Street at Sentosa, so much food to choose from and really spoilt for choice! Finally I decided to eat the Chay Keow Teow. As I did the sketch, I noticed there was another stall selling Chay Keow Kok, which was what we called carrot cake in Singapore. This sketch is on the first page of a long Moleskin Japanese Album Large.

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!

food court at Punggol

Last Sunday, I was hungry so I stopped at this place in Punggol for a quick bite before attending the first-month baby party for my new grand niece at the Punggol flat. The weather was so hot but the foreign workers were resting comfortably under the highway / viaduct just outside this food court.

five-minute quick sketch

Today I was having lunch with a design student who wanted to have a consultation with me on his current project. When he was having his lunch, I did this sketch to show him how I pick up lines, shapes and textures for a quick sketch. We spent almost 2 hours to discuss about his project. We both enjoyed the session very much and I think he learnt a lot from the discussion.

food court

food court at the airport

Everyone in my family was out to do something on a Saturday evening. I was home alone and I decided to explore Changi Airport food court to sketch people. The food court on basement 2 of Terminal 3 was very crowded indeed. Some people were staring at me while I sketched. May be they were curious, may be they were not happy that I occupied a seat when there was hardly any empty seat in the food court. They were waiting for me to leave perhaps? But I still had soup and rice left on the table. Can you see them on my sketch?