When a friend visits from overseas, I would always be happy to bring him or her to Kampong Glam. So this friend of mine asked whether the "Glam" in Kampong Glam is the short for glamourous. I blankly said I am not sure or is it? I heard some said the glam in the name of the location does mean glam as in glamourous. It makes sense because this place has a great blend of history, and culture.
Out of curiosity, I searched an info site and it says, the name was originally spelled "Campong Gelam" (NLB e-info) and was named so in 1830. In the late 80s, the area was gazetted to be a conservation zone. Another site says Kampong Glam was known as a village for its "gelam" tree (aka Paperbark tree) that grew in the area and was used for building ships. So there you have it. I wished I have known all these when I was asked this question.
Anyway it was a wonderful afternoon spent here sketching with a dear friend of mine, sipping kopitiam teh tarik and chatting at the same time. I wish I could do this everyday.
#kampongglam #procreate #ipadpro #applepencil
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| Fountain pen and watercolour |
There isn't a need to go out to sketch if you can't, or when the weather or climate is not permissible. Like today, the temperature will soar to a high of 34 degC, too hot to stay outdoors. Too much of a hassle to travel in the sweltering sun. For the last couple of days it has been so hot and humid, but what's new in Singapore. It is all round summer.
Anyway, it is not difficult to find something to sketch in and around the house. Danny Gregory does it all the time, from tea cups to just things. It is not the subject or the object that matters, but the process of seeing and drawing it. Just recently I acquired a wet/dry dual vacuum, the type you see maintenance workers bring around. I bought it because one of the air-conditioning unit was leaking, or drooling due to excessive condensation of vapour on the cooling pipes, which are already double insulated. This happened when the weather got too humid and hot. It leaked for a couple of days until I decided to do my own maintenance by getting this wet vacuum. I saw how the service people did it. They stuck this vacuum hose at the a/c outlet pipe for a couple of minutes in order to remove excessive accumulated condensed water within the cooling pipe and drainage. I did the same and managed to suck out 2-3 cups of water, even when the ac was not operating. Next I cleaned out the external filters and also vacuumed the cooling fins. With the wet vacuum I could "suck" dry the filter in minutes instead of letting it air-dry.
Job's done in 20mins. The wet vacuum cost me SGD89. An operation like this would cost me around SGD70 per a/c unit if I call in the maintenance people. I should have bought the vacuum at SGD50 when there was a promotion at the mall.... sigh* I am just not an opportunist. By the way, I regarded the job well done. The a/c is not leaking anymore and it took shorter time to cool down the room. A pat on my shoulder.
I have only printed my business cards a few times in my entire career as an artist, there was a period of more than 10 years I went about doing my business with one. However, in preparation for the USK Symposium 2016 in Manchester, and in anticipation of meeting up with very cool sketcher friends, I have decided to print something to give away this time, especially for those participants who signed up for my workshop. I want everyone to walk away happy. :D So for the first time, I printed postcards with my drawings, sketches and paintings. A total of 5 designs. I also reprinted my name cards as well. I will be waiting for my mini-cards from MOO, these would be arriving end of June, hopefully not later because I will be heading to UK in the second week of July. How exciting.
The print quality is not so bad. In fact I really like the one of the shophouses in sepia tone. I printed these at Bras Basah, at a shop named Misterprint. Comparatively the price is slightly higher than some other printing shops elsewhere, but I quite like their service and print quality. Until I find another better I would probably stick to this one for the time being, for the convenience of its locale and how the shop was run by nice ladies, I'm just kidding. Well, the lady who served me with my print job even went all out to redo my artwork for my rubber stamp design. I suck in preparing stuff for production since this was my first in making a rubber stamp. I knew some places that will simply reject your stuff if it doesn't work for printing.
We were at a building overlooking this Lavender Street junction and I could see Crawford Bridge quite clearly. From the text, the bridge was regarded as a historical monument but it was actually a reconstructed one due to the expansion work done to this road junction between Lavender and Crawford Street. It used to be a wood and steel bridge during the colonial period.
A glimpse of how my working desk looked like.
Sketching with a gel pen.
Caught sight of this young lady here sitting with her boyfriend who has been paying all his attention on his phone. Not so smart after all. So I titled this piece "Waiting".
For the first time in our life as husband and wife, we decided to witness the National Day celebration live. We did not have the tickets to be at the stand but we "camped" out along the waterfront at One Fullerton so we would still get a glimpse of the celebration. We arrived as early as 4.30pm to reserve a standing space. We knew it would be chaotic so we have to be early. However we were not the early birds. When we arrived, all the "front seats" have already been taken. The crowds got thicker eventually. Most people were armed with big cameras and tripods that were lined along the waterfront near the fences. I only have my sketchbook with me. :P
Joy took a pic of herself with the National Flag.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="A Chinook flew past with a giant Singapore Flag"]
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[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="Parachutes performance by the Arm Forces"]
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[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="255" caption="The crowd @ One Fullerton"]
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The wait for the fireworks was excruciatingly painful on my butt as I was sitting on my small (sketching) chair for almost 3 hours or more. But I took every opportunity to sketch the occasion since I am not sure whether I would ever return to the same place to witness the celebration again. The sketches would serve as a great way to remember.
Something interesting that I observed. Besides Singaporean, the foreigners were waiting eagerly for the celebration too. If I wasn't wrong, the ration of Singaporean to foreigners then was 1:1. I am certainly not surprised.
The long awaited fireworks ended at about 930pm. We continued on with our celebratory moods by having supper at Over Easy. What a way to celebrate National Day.
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www.donlowillustration.com/blog
