SKETCHWALK @ MARINA BAY BLVD – MARINA BAY WATERFRONT

Meet at Marina Bay City Gallery. A free standing building next to Promontory @ Marina Bay. Nearest MRT station is the new Downtown Station at Marina Bay Link Mall.

See map below for a clearer picture.

Show and tell will be back where we meet, then we decide where to go for lunch. Marina Bay Sands or the Link Mall for some good food. Please call Tia for directions if you get lost. Tel: 96968080.

Extra: Explore map of area here: Map here.
http://www.streetdirectory.com/asia_travel/travel/travel_id_52667/travel_site_1/?x=103.85407149269&y=1.2814551137504&l=13

Character Design Based on a friend – you know who

Character Caricature Design

Drawing of a character based on a friend – you know who.
Tools: Hero Fountain Pen with Noodlers Ink
Time: 5mins
Objective: Just for laugh

Sketchwalk Special October @ City Hall

Sketchwalk @ City Hall

You are most welcomed to join us, Urbansketchers, OIC for a special October Sketchwalk that is going to be held at the City Hall or the future The National Art Gallery, Singapore. In conjunction with the sketchwalk event, Dr Yeo and Sheau Theng will be there to give a historical introduction of these buildings namely City Hall and the Supreme Court. At the same time, Infocus Asia will be recording on video the entire process as we sketch.

Let’s meet along the City Hall steps at 9am. We will be sketching at both the mentioned buildings, including the Victoria Theater if time allowed and lastly inside the old Supreme Court if permissible. Finally we should have a sharing and coffee session.

Contact TIA @ 96968080 for more information or if you have any query.

Sketching weekend and a new pen

Weekend was a blast! Swam in the Infinity Pool, bought a new pen for myself – the second HERO fountain pen which cost SGD29. Sketched at National Library and read @ Basheer – didn’t buy any books – must save money for other thing….

View from National Library @ Hans Cafe

The above sketch was done with a Hero and colored back home. Here’s a sketch of the other Hero I bought @ Straits Commercial. The thinner version with a metallic grip. It has a stiffer nib but still gives a great variety of line thickness and quality. I loaded my older Hero with Polar Brown Noodlers Ink and now it is working much better. I think I have to work it more often in order to prevent clogging.

My new Hero Fountain Pen

Another sketch done with the fatter Hero fountain pen, and painted at home over the weekend.  The problem with this pen was the ink would once in a while stop flowing out of the nib. I have to give the ink converter cartridge a push to remove any trapped air bubbles to aid the flow. Or dipping into an ink pot may help too – that could be a little messy.

Changi Road Kopitiam Colored

Thank you! I hope it is okay to post these.

Watrcolor Box Set from W & N

My Color Palette

Found this sketch of my color palette box set from W & N Cotman series which I bought when I was in America studying. Cost me quite a bomb too. When I bought it, it was my first time seeing a watercolor box set – I know I am an ignorant artist! I was excited because now I could draw and paint on location without having to bring paint tubes and additional palette. At the same time I bought 3 brush pens so there wouldn’t be a need to carry water bottles too. These inventions are great stuff!

I cam back Singapore to find that this is not available (that was in Dec). But I found Straits Commercial selling individual color cakes by Rembrandt. I only managed to try the colors just recently 8 months later after I bought it. Rembrandt has more brilliancy than Cotman, and the paint dissolves much faster and looks richer! Okay, now my plan is too use up my Cotman and then replace with Rembrandt.

At the mean time… I will sketch more!!

Traditional Wayang with Puppets

First and foremost, thanks to Carol who took this wonderful pictures, and informing me of the traditional puppet wayang up in Ang Mo Kio Ave 10. As of the reason to why there was a Chinese puppet opera and a wild celebration of worshiping the deities that night was unknown to me. I wouldn’t understand anything of that sort but would do my best to understand, though my objective that night was to attempt to make some sketches of the event.

Drawing a crowd.

My sketch of the puppet show stage

My sketch against the real deal

My sketch took about 20-30mins to complete, or maybe more as during the process, I stopped to talk to an elderly guy who came over to tell me that this is a vanishing trade. Well so much for vanishing trade. When first I arrived at the puppet show, there wasn’t anyone sitting in front of the stage to watch it. I thought the show was over but it wasn’t. The crowds were gathered at the getai and another opera a short distant away. There were no chair too. I have to pull a chair from somewhere so I could sit myself right in front of the stage. I was the only audience. Halfway through my sketch I managed to attract a small crowd standing behind me. They were not watching the show but looking on curiously why and what I was sketching.

I was having quite a lot of fun splashing colors – lots of it. The traditional puppet show was a great display of light and colors. Due to the nature of the medium and my lack of proper management of paint, I had a hard time replicating or representing it. But I think I did a fairly good job in making the sketch look really busy – that would easily be the noise, the smell of the incense, the crowds and so forth that invaded my space while I was sketching.

SilkAir Explorers

Got a travel story to share? Do just that and stand a chance to win one year’s worth of air tickets to travel around exotic Asian destinations for one full year. Create your travel journal on SilkAir Explorers and you could be on your way to a journey of a lifetime. What’s not to love about that? Here’s the link:

http://www.silkairexplorers.com/light/index.php
Join the contest & vote for each other too!

Kuanth, Sok Kuan, and Don’s work have been used by SilkAir to promote the event. See also one of the journals blown up to life size!!
SilkAir Explorer made life size
Or better yet, come and support us & spread the love!

Here are the dates:
• 10 -12 Sep: Marina Square, Marina Court (Kochi)
• 22-26 Sep: Vivo City, East Court (Kochi & Kathmandu)
• 7-8 Oct: Chevron House, Column Space (Kathmandu)

Process – Putting an illustration together

The art brief was given: 3 illustrations are required for 3 mobile gaming gadgets from the 80s onwards. I have to make some research on which gadgets were the most popular then. Then I produce the sketches for review and approval, and provided some visual references as well.

Click thumbnails for a bigger view. Once green light is given, it is time to create the individual elements. First a picture of my hand is taken (unfortunately I do not have a budget to hire a hand model, so I have to make do with my own hand) and it is taken to Photoshop for cropping and adding some simple efx. During the process, the editor thought the hand used within the graphic is too fat, so I have to “tweak” it in PS again.

The efx are just creating high contrast and adding color half tones… which is very ez to do within PS. Next is to create the game machine. I am using the Game Gear as an example. There is nothing special to the process, just simple airbrushing and drawing the individual elements.

It may look tedious but if you can do it fast enough it may not be the case. Using the same method I went ahead to create the gadget illustrations for PSP4 Go and Game Watch. Yes I have fun and I used references from pictures I found on the internet.

I am going to skip to the final illustrations.

These are the final illustrations. Different color schemes and graphic designs are used for different mobile gaming gadgets.

Thank you for reading.

MOH Charity Event – Call for portrait artists

MOH Charity Event

The Celedon House of MOH is organising a carnival to raise funds for its two adopted charities: Lions Befrienders and Yong-en Care Centre. OIC has been invited to take part in this event by helping to source for artists that could volunteer at the caricature/portrait booth. Employees of MOH would be paying $10 for each caricature/portrait and $5 would go to the artist whilst the remainder goes to charity. Of course, they would be encouraged to donate more if they like the caricature/portrait. There’s no time limit to each drawing, but of course, the faster you draw, the more money MOH would raise. There’s also no restrictions to only professional artists or students. All are welcome.

For interested participants, kindly contact Kat at:
Email: katherine_soh@moh.gov.sg
(O) 6325 1290

Please note that this is NOT an official OICsingapore organised event.

Tiong Bahru, White Canvas Gallery

Tiong Bahru, White Canvas Gallery