[by Don Low, Singapore] I knew I came to the right location (Geylang Lor 31) to sketch because it felt like a happy place. An empty table in a kopitiam (food and coffee place) await me. It has a good angle overlooking a handsome 2-storey shophouse painted in a beautiful coat of subdued amber. On the front facade hung a sign that says "lim kopi" which literally means "drink coffee" in half Hokkien and Malay. I ordered my drink and happily settled down to sketch. A group of uncles in their 60s were drinking happily at a table beside me, and was bantering loudly how life was hard on them. I wasn't really listening intently because I wasn't very fluent in the Hokkien language they were using except for some curse words, but I mindfully told myself I have to draw them later.



Shortly after, one of the uncle, out of curiosity, came over to watch what I was doing. When I said hi to him, he started sharing about his interest in art but couldn't draw for nuts. He told me he loved to watch artists draw or paint, turning blank canvases into works of art. In simple words, he said a good drawing needs a good angle, which I think what he meant was composition and design or depth. When I told him he said it well, he let out a loud satisfying laugh. I sketched from 8pm to 1030pm.



 All the while he was going back and forth from his table to mine whenever he needed to smoke. I counted, within the 2.5 hours I was drawing, he has already puffed 5-6 cigs. When he laughed, he would be wheezing and letting out a raspy smoker's cough.  I have half the mind to tell him he has to stop smoking so much. When his friends left, he asked to sit at the same table with me. That was when the real conversation began.

 

Uncle's name is Tan Hou Ping (*uncle - a respectful way to address an elderly person). He proudly announced that he is 67 years old (younger than my parents), has served in the National Service as a pioneer, and is a grandfather of 6 grandchildren. He is happily semi-retired, living with his wife apart from his children, and is financially independent. He doesn't do much now except some simple exercises in the morning, odd jobs in the day and then drink with his friends in the evening. Most of the time he dominated the conversation as what most uncles would do. When it was time (already 1030pm) for me to leave, I decided to take a selfie with Mr Tan who obliged happily. I told him I would be writing about him and our new found friendship in my diary. He seemed happy to hear that and showed reluctance for me to go. He sounded like he has a lot more to tell me.

A friend would say he sketches so he remembers. By dating the sketches and short descriptions of what, where and why, the motivation behind a sketch becomes apparent, and more directed. Therefore it is not a random act of simply drawing for the sake of drawing something. Most people would write a diary at the end of the day, about their day, what they have done. Artists, I know of one, do that too by drawing the events of the day in a sequential narrative like in a comic. The latter takes a lot more time and effort, to recall and to draw. A diary needs an angle too, and not simply a record of things and events in a chronological manner.

Watercolour (traditional) medium versus iPad Pro Digital Sketching



Objectively it is not difficult to compare. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. Both mediums show some similarities and of course many more differences. Some may like one and dislike the other. Some, like me, show equal liking for both. I so think the iPad Pro with Procreate would be a great combination and good opportunity to marry both digital and traditional mediums together.

 Sometimes iPad is my preferred choice of drawing platform because it is convenient. Like I said before it only require an Apple Pencil. No fuss with filling ink, skipped lines, ink splatter and so forth. And henceforth, over time, drawing with the iPad can eventually get a little monotonous, especially when you are through with customising your own brushes, making new ones and experimenting with them to make every brush stroke looking natural, and mastering them.

To make the drawing process with the iPad Pro to feel less digital, I try to avoid using functions like, zoom-in, zoom-out, or even Undo. I even allow some marks that were caused by failed palm rejection. I would draw with one layer, even with adding colours, so that the process feels like drawing on paper, well, as much as possible.





However, no matter how you try to reverse the digital process, nothing beats the paper texture, the feel of the tooth against your pen, causing skipped lines, splatter, scratches and much more. Though these things can be created in the digital medium (some artists actually went through lotsa pain to emulate the traditional look and feel), they cannot get as spontaneous as drawing and painting on paper.

Take for example the painting above. It was done with watercolor on Saunders paper NOT. Half way through the painting, it started to rain and the rain got quite heavy. I was fortunately sat under a little awning of a restaurant so I was kept dry throughout. But the painting was outside the awning, though I tried to keep it sheltered, the paper got wetter and wetter as I painted. But I loved the result!! Something that is pretty hard to achieve in a digital medium.

In conclusion, just stick to whatever brings you joy in drawing!

With iPad Pro, Apple Pencil & Procreate

For Singapore, Mothers' Day falls on 8 May this year, 2016. Naturally, it is right to celebrate this grand occasion with a sumptuous meal, however it could get a little tricky to get a table in a restaurant in a shopping mall, because everyone would be sharing the same idea of celebrating Mothers' Day with a family dinner. Quite expectedly, the mall was crowded but not as crowded as what I have expected. As we approached the restaurant we wanted to eat in, we saw a little line, and the server was busy with several customers in the line. When we were attended to, we were told we have to order set meals because À la carte orders were not available on Mothers' Day. Well, we walked away as we thought it wasn't worth the money. A simple set meal for 4 could cost at least SGD150 for 6 dishes, including desert. We reckoned we couldn't eat that much too. We walked down to the first level of Parkway Parade (recent it caught fire and has to be closed for a day on 16 May 2016) and decided to settle in "Chicken Up", a Korean fried chicken restaurant. We loved fried chicken but we also ordered for mom a Ginseng Herbal Chicken Soup that was shared among four of us. Eventually we couldn't finish the meal and have to packed to go. The entire dinner cost about SGD80 plus.

During the course of dinner, I drew the busy scene in front of me, with some personal interpretations and capturing some likeness as well. I simply populated the entire sketch with people coming and going, usually from memory. The trick is to remember (as much as possible) the shape that constitute to the figure, pose and so forth. Every figure has its unique stance, pose and the sum of it is the shape or silhouette we register in our mind, more or less with or without the details. Some knowledge of anatomy would be helpful, certainly the ability to draw the proportion is good too.

Overall I am satisfied with the result of this sketch. The composition was balanced with the strategic placements of the darks creating a rhythm leading the eyes from one point to another and back again. The white spaces also create spots of resting areas for the viewer's eyes but also place certain emphasis on specific areas of the sketch/ drawing. Sometimes not much planning was made during the process of sketching, most of the time many decisions were made somewhat intuitively. Draw more think less.... hmmmm.

If its not too noisy sometimes, you could make out what others were talking about. But I usually made up the dialogue in the sketch as I am not particularly interested in what others have to say. I presume if it's not about the government, then it's complaining about their spouses or children, or maybe how tough life is.

I have finally changed the blog header image to one that shows my painting setup. The image above shows it too, with detail labels of the stuff I brought with me. I placed everything on a lightweight trolly I recently purchased from a Chinese online store. It is collapsible and can be folded into something that measure not more than 1' X 1' in dimension. Very handy to bring around. Today I tested it out at West Coast Park, rolling it across some winding path with slight elevation to where the coast line is, about 200m from where I parked my car. So far nothing gave.

Since the launch of the hardware last year in Oct 2015, there have been many positive reviews by users all over the world. My rating for the Apple Pencil and the technology behind it: Awesome, and a 5 Stars rating. I am always attracted to the ease of use of a new hardware. In this case, all you need to do to connect the Apple Pencil to the iPad Pro is by sticking the Pencil's rear end into the charging port. There is no need for syncing to be done. There is no calibration. The Apple Pencil works like a charm with Procreate once the app is activated.