Intermediate Class at Brahm Tampines

Today we concluded another successful intermediate class on Pen and Ink Drawing at Brahm Tampines. There were over 24 young seniors and one young lady producing such impressive sketches for 6 lessons over 6 weeks. Some of them didn't take the beginners' class and they were able to follow and produce great sketches!

Demo Pieces

You see two almost identical demo pieces side by side because I have two different classes in a week.

These are my demo pieces during the Oct/Nov lessons that I teach at Brahm Centre after my retirement from the higher institutions which I seldom or don't do demo at all. At higher institutions, younger students will engage in self discovery in their art journey after I give them the lecture or briefing at the start of each lesson. However, I realise for senior learners in my current classes, demo is necessary for them to grasp the skills in a structured way.

Cartridge Papers 135 grams
Gel pens, ink and watercolours

Senior Learners

This morning I officially completed another 2 classes of "Pen and Ink Drawing Penang" at Brahm Newton and Tampines for the seniors. I learnt so much from them as much as they picked up so many tips from me. My new class in Jan 2025 is full and new classes at intermediate level will be announced next year. Thanks for all the support!

Senior Learners

This week is the final week for these senior-learners so we had a show and tell at the end of the lesson. Keep learning!

Posted by Tia Boon Sim on Thursday 19 September 2024

Teaching Seniors

So today I completed all 6 sessions of "Pen Ink Drawing" at Brahm Newton, Tampines and Simei for the seniors. We had so...

Posted by Tia Boon Sim on Friday 26 July 2024

I started teaching 3 classes respectively at Brahm Tampines from 6 Jun to 11 Jul 2024,
at Brahm Newton from 19 Jun to 21 Jul 2024,
at Brahm Simei from 21 Jun to 27 Jul 2024.

Marina Bay with SUTD students

Marina Bay sketchwalk with students under scorching hot sun. Accourding to weather man, it felt like 39degC.
Instructors include Erwin Lian, Jeffrey Ang, Andrew Tan and yours truly.

Another Outing with SUTD

Posted by Tia Boon Sim on Tuesday 26 March 2024

We went to Eco Lake of Botanic Garden to sketch yesterday with students from SUTD. I have been teaching Urban Sketching course at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) since 2012 even when I was teaching full time at Temasek Polytechnic. I was grateful for the Poly to allowing me to teach at SUTD every Friday afternoon for a semester. It started in Sep 2012 for the first run and now it is conducted from Jan to Apr for the students in term2. It has been 12 years since and the students are getting younger while we instructors are getting older!

Size : 650 x 210mm

The Great Madras at Little India

I conducted a Master Class last Saturday for a group of BA students at The Great Madras Hotel, Little India. It was a very hot day but we were lucky to sketch in the shade. This image is taken by an app using iPhone called CamScanner. I still need to enhance it on Photoshop in file size and some details.

From 2019, I will upload my sketches directly from blogger without a link to my Flickr.

Ball Point Sketch

The class at the beginning of the test which took 40 minutes. However, they could leave after 20 minutes into the test. After that, they would have to stay till the end of the test.

The second sketch showed only a few students left 20 minutes into the test, they had to stay for another 20 minutes in the room.

I used normal ballpoint pen for the sketches since the fountain pen was dry.

Class Test

During a class test so I can sketch when students were very focused. Natasha sitting on first row had a big nose ring.

Sketching with SUTD students at SCAPE

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.

It's a Wrap!

It's a wrap for this semester teaching. I am now with International Relations that runs an academic centre called Centre for TransCultural Studies. CTS offers very diversed languages and cultural subjects for all students to choose as a "Cross Disciplinary Subject". Here are two out of five groups of my classes with students from very diversed background. We have Malays, Indians, Eurasians, Cambodians, Burmese, Arabs, Philippinas and also a British student in my classes. They are making me feel energetic and young again.

Master Class at Little India

Last Saturday, I did a 5 to 8 mins demo to a group of Master Class students from LaSalle College of the Arts. It was a very hot day but it also drizzled for a while and I just sat there on the same spot. I thought it was my sweat dripping from my forehead. It was a fun outing!

Sharing at Silverfox Studio

Photos taken by Achilles Estremos, another sketcher of team 2 for "We Draw Amaravati Together" project from 8 to 15 Dec 2017 on the day sharing of our sketches to his office colleagues. Susan Heng, one of the bosses of the interior firm was my student from Interior Architecture and Design programme at School of Design, Temasek Polytechnic probably from 1991 to 1993. Her partner was Patrick Waring seen here on the right in the photos. Kaili Huang from Amaravati Project Office of Ministry of Trade and Industry and Francis Theo, team leader of this trip were helping me to hold my Seawhite Concertina Sketchbook.

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!

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!

End of Term

The first term of first semester had just ended last week. This semester, I was observing a class of non-Chinese students taking a subject called "Introduction to Language and Culture (Mandarin)". It was so inspiring and fun to watch them speaking Mandarin. My colleague also did a wonderful job in engaging them in class.

I was taking part in "20 Sketches 20 Days" on Facebook with sketcher-friends and we needed to sketch at least 20 sketches in a month for this entire year. I recently found an old sketchbook which I bought in Portland when I first attended the Urban Sketchers Symposium in 2010. It was not ideal for sketching when there was a lot of 'show through' as the fountain pen ink 'bled' through the pages which also warped when light washes were applied. Brush pen was better and I would apply digital colours if I had time.

Here are three sketches depicting the classes at different sessions, one with digital colours and two just in black and white.

Tools: Piccadilly Sketchbook size 90x140mm, brush pen and digital colours.