Sketching at Tiong Bahru

Last Saturday sketching with Urban Sketchers Singapore.

I missed the official sketchwalks this year and great to be back with the Urban Sketchers Singapore this morning at my favourite place to sketch. I planned to sketch block 58 from the wet market side but the beautiful bushy yellow-flowered tree now covered the entire corner of block 58 where Whisk used to be! I was sketching opposite the wet market and the cars, vans and even one big delivery truck blocked my view from 5 to 15 mins as in this car on the left and to almost an hour as in the car on the right!. It was really challenging and so much have changed in Tiong Bahru Estate. Both old corner shops were gone but the charming buildings still there! Now it is Prive on the left and Little House of Dreams on the right! Oh yes, SGH in the distance.

Panoramic Sketch

Process of a long format, this is hard but fun. Done at staycation at Marina Bay Sands room 2527, high floor with a spectacular panoramic view.

Final Piece at Marina Bay Sands

First completed sketch in 2020

My first completed sketch on first day of 2020 but I did the 30-min black and white version while waiting for husband to pick me up after an office retreat at the National Gallery on 10 Dec 2019. Then I went back to complete the colouring and added the Marina Bay Sands on the left on the first day of new year 2020. Just make it for this first post on first day of 2020 after scanning. Happy New Year 2020 everyone!

Ginger Garden

This is at the Ginger Garden at Singapore Botanic Garden. This sketch is in ink and watercolour. Size: 65x21cm in Moleskine Japanese Album Large sketchbook. The sticker on the bottom right is specially designed for ‘10’ anniversary of USKSG. We also held a postcard sketch exchange activity at the end of the sketchwalk and I did a small sketch shown on the right. The sketch went to George Huang. In return, I got a sketch from Patrick Ng. What a memorable way to wrap up our last sketchwalk of the year.

The Ginger Garden, officially opened in 2003, showcases a rich living collection of several hundred species of gingers and plants from related families. There is this beautiful lotus lake with a “Little Girl on a Swing” bronze sculpture on the right of the sketch. So beautiful.

This is probably the last sketch I did for 2019 but not the only new sketch for the 2019 album. I have not been scanning my long sketches done in the past few months due my busy schedule but will get to it one day hopefully.

Happy new year 2020!

A Sketch from the Beauty World

Last month we had the official Sketchwalk at Beauty World and again, it was a great turn-out!

A few of us sketched from the 4th storey open-air food centre and while the mall is old, the food centre is clean and well-maintained except for the common problem - birds and their droppings. This is probably the only food centre with a panoramic view from the public housing flats at Jurong Kechil on the left of my sketch to the two tall radio towers at Bukit Timah Hill on the right which I did not include in the sketch.

The story of Beauty World can be found here. When I was a young architect with the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) of Singapore, Beauty World Centre was still on the drafting table of William Ong, my senior at the School of Architecture and now founder of Axis Architect Planners and Axis ID. Like other buildings built by URA during that time, Beauty World Centre was built to resettle those businesses that were affected by either road widening or other redevelopment projects. Today, Beauty World Centre; an old but charming mall; was in the process of jumping in and out of the en-bloc wagon.

Read more at this link to find out more about Beauty World Centre.

On the Cruise

So peaceful and quiet. On the cruise - the best thing to do is to sketch. At every turn, the view changed with different sizes and shapes of the islands so as the sky and the waters.

Ha Long Bay

My husband and I spent an extra day after the event ended at Ha Long Bay, a peaceful and quiet beach.

Pedestrianised Dinh Tien Hoang

This is a sketch of Dinh Tien Hoang looking towards the Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc Square. The entire road was closed for the weekend for a big carnival. In the afternoon it was quiet but it came alive at night with music and dancing! On the left is thê Húc Bridge, painted vermillion red over the famous Hoàn Kiếm Lake.

St Joseph Cathedral in Hanoi

I completed one Molesking concertina sketchbook and this is the first sketch on the second sketchbook on St Joseph Cathedral in Hanoi. It is a very touristy, busy and lively place. The church was built like Notre Dame in Paris as a late 19th-century Gothic Revival church that served as the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hanoi to nearly 4 million Catholics in the country.

Dong Xuan Market in Hanoi

Dong Xuan Market where the locals go and it is also a tourist landmark. Originally built by the French administration in 1889, Đồng Xuân Market has been renovated several times with the latest in 1994 after a fire which almost destroyed the market.

Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc Square

So I sketched from the top of the building over two or three Vietnamese coffee at the Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc Square in Hanoi. There were not traffic lights at all at this busy junction. Can you imagine how traffic and pedestrians move? Incredible!

Ancient House

Ancient House at 87 Ma May Street on the right. There were only two such original old buildings left along this street when I sat at Lantern Lounge. Again, they were painted in yellow. This Ancient House is one of the few intact remains of an old-style home open to the public with an entrance fee. Initially the house was built for one family, but from 1954 to 1999 five families lived in the house. Today, except for 81 and 87 Ma May Street, the entire row of similar old shophouses had since been demolished and rebuilt.

First sketch in Hanoi

My husband and I arrived in Hanoi a day earlier to attend the Aisa-Link Sketchwalk 2019 in Hanoi. First impression of Hanoi was the busy streets, motorcycles everywhere, women street vendors selling all kind of fresh produces, electrical posts and overhead cables dangling here and there. The sights and sounds of the Old Quarter were so exciting and overwhelming. I sat at coffee shop at the road junction and sipping my local iced coffee for about 15 minutes before pulling out my sketchbook from the bag. Yellow is the colour of the old buildings in Hanoi and that was the focus for my first sketch. Two ladies in traditional colourful Ao Dai just walked past the junction of Hang Bac and Dinh Liet, how not to capture them in the most graceful gesture?

Pearl's Hill Terrace

I was busy but still managed to spend a morning visiting the Former Combined Operations Room Exhibition at 195, Pearl's Hill Terrace. I did a sketch at the courtyard while others explored the interior spaces. The exhibition can only take 15 people at a time and we had a good understanding of how people there worked and protected us. More information of the FCOR exhibition at this link.

Did you know the red telephone ☎️ is direct line to LKY office in the early days?

New Brush Pens

I was trying out the new SAI Japanese brush pens brown and dark brown from http://www.akashiya-fude.co.jp/050_product/sai_01.php. On this stretch of the road, YMCA is on the left and Orchard Road Presbyterian Church in the middle and Fort Canning Hills on the right accessible by a huge outdoor spiral stairs after the church.

It was interesting to know that The East India Company had contributed S$250 towards the construction of the church when a sizeable number of Scots began worshiping there. The small chapel was nicknamed the “Scots Church” or "Greja Kechil".

"The church building was erected in 1878 at a cost of $20,000, and worship at this new location began with only 42 members. It was dubbed Greja Kechil (meaning small church in Malay) for its small size." http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_819_2004-12-27.html

The church was the crime scene for a "Curry Murder" case in 1984. You can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ayakannu_Marithamuthu

Museum Affandi

Another small sketch at Museum Affandi. I believe these people I sketched were connected to Affandi family. The hanging butterfly was red but I forgot to add in the correct colour later.

You can read all about Affandi at https://www.affandi.org/

It's election period

We were all sitting comfortably in one van and headed towards Taman Sari and I did a quick small sketch inside the van. It was election period so the green and red flags were sprouting out from both road sides and some flying high in the air. What a colourful sight.

Second Sketch at Ghim Moh

This is the second sketch in 20 mins before the show and tell.

Result of Sketchwalk at Ghim Moh

First sketch at Sketchwalk.

It was raining cats and dogs, so I just sat there and sketched after my nice mee pok and Kopi O. Good recommendation for the noodles stall from Patrick Ng Benedict Tay Hendriko Teguh Sangkanparan and thanks Alice Lim for the popiah, all so nice. Kopi O was very good too.

Sitting there, I noticed there were so many old folks in wheel chairs or in other PMDs. The old Chinese lady on wheel chair sitting opposite us was with a sweet Malay lady, I was very sure she's a social worker or a friend. Another Malay lady came to sit with them and the old lady took out some papers from his bag. She left shortly after giving her a cheque. They had traditional breakfast (bread, egg and hot drink) in the morning and when I left, the old lady was having noodles.

So many old uncles and aunties at the coffee shop and the young ones were at the crowded food centre and market near-by.