Urbansketching | Kampong Glam revisited

There's still much to discover and rediscover in the conservation area at Kampong Glam. In this sketch, line art was done on location opposite the building. We were sitting comfortably in a coffeeshop and crab restaurant enjoying the shade and breeze. The sketch took a while but it was fun to do especially when you have a company. I took the drawing home to add colour from memory and from the photo I took when I completed the sketch. The idea is to bring out the atmosphere we experienced and the light but not directly copying from the photo. It's a lot more satisfying this way.

There are a few principles I follow when adding light and shadow with watercolour:

• use transparent washes and glazes
• use complementary hues to mix greys for shadows
• choose a facade of the building for light and the other for shadow
• the facade that gets the light may have more white or saturated colour
• interiors need darks, same goes to whatever that is under the roof or awning
• shadows indicates the direction of light - opened windows will cast a shadow on the facade of the building
• the sky and clouds should be abstracted
• keep the brush strokes loose and vary the shapes painted