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.

Coffee & Breakfast

Coffee & Breakfast @ Tiong Bahru

Even after the gallery show, I have been back to Tiong Bahru now and then just because the estate is very near to where my wife works. However each time when I was there, it felt different all the time. My wife does not like the buildings in Tiong Bahru; she said they look more or less like asylums with white walls and flat roofs, even though there are round corners. I like the ambiance the place carries, with the usual morning hustle and bustle which dies down as afternoon approaches and after the lunch crowds departs. I like how the shops are selling stuffs which are cheap and things which we use everyday; and how the goods are laid out so haphazardly you have to look very closely to find what you need. I also like how the pace of life slows to a stroll too. With every place commercialized and urbanized and modernized in Singapore, this is where you would find a little heritage and memory to live by.

What I bring along for a sketching trip

It is amazing how these things could actually fit into a little bag that I usually carry around with me. Sometimes I would bring along 2 sketchbooks – a regular one and one that I paint watercolor – both are small and handy and lightweight; the fountain pens are the essentials – I use “Lamy” and “Pen & Ink” fountain pens loaded with Noodler’s ink which I would bring along in a smaller bottle shown above (it is not clear from the top down view). Besides the fountain pens, the brush pens are very important too – one is loaded with black ink, another with diluted black watercolor and 3 loaded with water for watercolor painting. On the bottom right corner you will see my medicines which include a bottle of AXE oil, a tube of Mopiko for the mosquito bites, panadol for headaches, sunblock with 32 spf, lozenges for discomfort throat, mouth spray for the bad breath, wet towel to wash up and mosquito patches (not shown above) as most of the time Singapore is infested (not too bad) with the bad bugs that bite especially after a rain. I am trying my best to keep everything lightweight so I wouldn’t get too tired carrying these. On an official sketch trip, I would also bring along a mini camping chair, and an additional cloth bag to contain my extra larger watercolor papers too! Whew! Most of the time, I find myself just using 1-2 pens and not everything that I brought. But you never know.

Monkey god temple @ Tiong Bahru

Revisiting the temple for a quick sketch and watercolor painting within the duration of drinking a cup of coffee. The motivation for revisiting the place is to make more sketches and painting @ Tiong Bahru since those that were made at this location were sold during the gallery show which was a great success. I earned my bonus for that month, thanks to the generous art collectors who bought my sketches and paintings. I am not yet sure whether I would sell my new pieces, but for the time being, I am just sketching and painting for my own pleasure.

Sushi Tei

Putu Piring Stall

The advantage of living in a multi-racial country like Singapore is the ability to taste all kinds of food and delicacies from all walks of life and from all the different races living within. One of them which is my favorite is named Putu Piring – a Malay dessert. Just today, I chanced upon one of these stalls that make Putu Piring and I know I need to have some. Just to elaborate more, Putu Piring is a small, white cake made of flour and stuffed with gula melaka (brown sugar). For SGD1, you get 3 cottony cakes. I haven’t found the meaning to the word Putu but Piring means plate. To make one of these, rice flour and gula melaka or brown sugar is packed into tiny metal containers that look like flat plates aka piring in Malay. The latter are then placed on a specially built steamer with conical inserts to hold the plates. White cotton cloth is placed between the plates and the conical steamers. Finally conical metal lids are placed above each piring and then everything is left to steam for 5 mins. To serve, the steamed rice flour now in the form of a cottony cake, is removed from the metal containers, and eventually placed over a square piece of banana leaf for added flavor. Grated fresh coconut is added to the putu pirings to be eaten together. This is best eaten piping hot – “the right balance of sugar and flour coupled with a fluffy texture and the fresh grated coconut” — boo_licious (a blogger @ http://masak-masak.blogspot.com). A typical Putu Piring stall is shown above.

Making Putu Piring

I managed to sketch the interesting contraption that is used to make this delicious Malay dessert. I have not understood how this thing work yet but the entire steamer could make about about 20 pieces of Putu Piring, if I am not wrong. My sketch is not drawn to accuracy.

My Putu Piring

My version of Putu Piring is served as sketched above – the cakes are wrapped in a large brown paper folded in the shape of a pyramid. There is a little square piece of banana leaf for added flavor, and a generous portion of grated coconut or Kelapa Parut in Malay.  ) Yummy! I am hungry now.

Photo taken by Maye-e Wong

Everything was worth the time and energy. The turn out for the exhibition was overwhelming. Food was great (though I did not manage to get a bite) and the music has enlivened a sleepy Tiong Bahru. I am both glad and pleased that we have decided to do this – a gallery show of our sketches. At first I do not think this would be possible because we thought it would be inappropriate to display sketches from our sketchbooks. These are unfinished works and they are very personal. But my skepticism was proven wrong. People do enjoy looking at sketches. Someone told me these sketches are like a memory, a moment captured on paper, a fleeting emotions of a location and so forth. They were right.

Photo taken by Maye-Wong

Tiong Bahru on brown paper

That day was a hot day- that’s all i remembered. It was so hot I couldn’t really think. Nevertheless, we got together to sketch under a shady spot, with canned lime drinks and coke to quench our thirst. We laid out our materials and before we could even get started, we saw what each other brought with them. I saw Paul’s brown pastel paper and decided to give it a try with watercolor and ink. It took the ink well but it was pretty hard to paint. The result was not satisfactory, until Paul showed me his crayons and I gave it another try. So I added spots of colors to bring out the texture and woh, it was worth the try.

And the following is the video taken and edited by Kat;

Toa Payoh North Canteen

The pic said it all.
Anyway I did this not long ago, the date was May 22, but only to manage to scan it last night and post it on the blog. Just wanna say sketching has been the link between the world and myself ever since I have started journal sketching and got to like it a lot. It is not just all about creating the best looking artwork on an expensive sketchbook, but it is a way of keeping tab of your life as well. Like I said before I was really inspired by Danny Gregory who started a group and published a book called “Everyday Matters” – a memoir about his wife’s accident and how he learned to draw – a must read. Visit his website and get inspired. A sketch journal can be anything. It doesn’t need the best looking artwork or drawing; it can be your lunch, something you collected or even your thoughts about a place. Whenever I sketched, i told myself it is not going to be a good drawing, so it looses me to be free and gives me the courage to make mistake and learn from it – after all it is my personal diary. “The beauty of a sketch journal is that you are creating an illuminated journal” — Hannah Hinchman.