Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
One of the unforeseen pitfalls I encountered sketching in Singapore last month was the humidity. It was really hot too, but it was that moister in the air that made my Fabriano sketch pad pages just soft and soggy enough to cause me problems.
The softer drawing surface meant my usual pencil drawing tool (a 30 year old Faber-Castell 2mm clutch pencil loaded with 6B lead) struggled to bite to the surface leaving my drawings a bit washed out looking!
I noticed that many of the Singapore sketchers, and others from the region too, draw in ink either via fountain pen, dip pen or even sharpened sticks (especially in Kiah Kiean's case!). I think it's a lot to do with the problem I found, of soggy damp paper?
These top 2 sketches were drawn in pencil onsite over the symposium days, and looked so washed out I've later decided to have a crack with the brush pen. I quite enjoyed it, so who knows you might see more in this style!
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| Market on Waterloo Street |
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| Orchard Road |
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| Return flight surrounded by sleeping students |
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