Symposium Final Day

Originally published on Urban Sketchers

As I write this post, it's 2am and I'm sitting in my hotel room trying typing and uploading photos from the day. Reception will wake me at 5:30 am in time to make my flight back to New Zealand, so soon I will be back at home, parked at my desk on a chilly Monday morning trying to come to terms with 4 days of Singapore sketch madness!

It has been a pleasure working with Maria and Parka over the last few days to help bring these correspondent reports. It has been inspirational to meet so many talented sketchers, from so many countries (36 as I understand!), many of which I would never have known about or met if I hadn't attended this symposium

I did attend a couple of workshops today, first I called in to Liz Steels 'Pointless Perspective' workshop. I tried out some her techniques which once again totally challenged my usual way of approaching sketching. Liz is a bit of a character, so I tried to capture her irrepressible personality in my sketch.

Liz Steel demonstrating technique
Next I called in on Matthew Brehm's workshop 'The Structure of light in watercolour' Matt has lots tips and insights into the application of watercolour that I found inspiring. My watercolour box is a muddy shambles so I will be using some of his tips to help clean up my colour application in future.

Mathew Brehm in action

A Raffles Concierge
James Lim tucks in!
Lapin's workshop  'All you can see - 180 degree sketching' really turned my brain inside out. He teaches curvilinear perspective, a technique he has developed to help fit a full scene into one page, a clever approach the disregards normal perspective, it's also a lot of fun.

After lunch I tagged along with Asnee Tasna on his activity - 'Singapore now and then' where we went back in Singapore's architectural history from the ultramodern, energy efficient Singapore Library building back to the Raffles Hotel, built in 1887, a short distance away. Asnee worked on the restoration and redevelopment of Raffles back in the late 1980's so he knows a lot of the buildings history and some hidden corners where we could get a look without being a paid up guest of the hotel. He encouraged us to just relax with some sketches, try a different fun style. A bonus was the ice cream the vendor we passed by selling ice cream sandwiches – it was so hot my Taro ice cream was melting quicker than I could eat it.


Open Sketchwalk and group photo
The day ended with a mass sketch walk and closing ceremony, a last chance to catch up with sketchers over some food and a drink before we headed off for some 'drink and draw' and sketch talk into the small hours.

Open Sketchwalk featuring Vicente and Marina

A late night sketch-off with Lapin

Thank you Singapore, I hope to come and sketch with you again sometime!