Hello Sketching Friends!
Hope you all have been well and enjoying spring time. The weather is heating up very quickly in Singapore and big rain storms often follow after a really hot morning. Yesterday morning was another hot scorching day but I managed to hide in a small back alley with plenty of shade to paint this familiar corner. I have sketch this back corner of Ellison building several time over the last 15 years so this post will hopefully show you how my work, style and techniques have evolved.
This is my first urban sketch of Ellison Building and captivated by the juxtaposition of different shapes and colours. I was also obsessed with the textures and grittiness of the wall. These made good ideas and materials for a sketch. Maybe even a perfect stage set for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet!
Over the years I have introduced a lot more play to my sketching and painting. I started to mix drawing and painting and not restricted to always starting with a fully drawn page. Yes you can jump right in with your brush and colours. Let the paint dance before reining them in with lines.
For this piece I swapped familiar hot-pressed watercolour paper with an unfamiliar paperless YUPO paper. Lots of fun pushing and pulling paint cross the page. YUPO does not absorb any liquid so the paint can stay wet and suspended on the paper surface for a longer time. I can get really interesting effects and textures with YUPO. Using unfamiliar tools and new surfaces have been helpful to create creative interruptions to familiar routine thinking processes.
Now looking back, here are my thoughts.
Never stop playing! Let play precede critical judgements.
Practice lots. Just turn the page if you are stuck or things are not working out.
Same scene but take a different approach. Try telling a different story. Same same but different.
Pick a different entry/starting point. Repetition can be a curiosity killer.
Little backstory for Ellison building. This crumbly old building is a beautiful colonial-styled building was previously owned by Issac Ellison (1864-1928), a well-known figure of the Jewish community in Singapore. The Ellison Building was built in 1924 possibly for his wife Flora Ellison, a Baghdadi Jew from Rangoon, Myanmar’s former capital. Now the building is vacant and conserved to accommodate new constructions at Mackenzie road. I hope the building will return to its past of hosting many interesting businesses.
See you next month in May with more sketching adventures!
Are you an art lover, foodie and curious about Vietnam? Here is your opportunity to join me in North Vietnam in 2026. I will be teaching 6 workshops during our 10 days art food culture retreat. We will start in Hanoi and end in Ha Long bay. Click here for more information.
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