Hi and Bye For Now Virginia Hein

I totally missed Virginia Hein's workshop at the 6th International Urban Sketchers Symposium in Singapore . I was at another location covering the workshops there which was far from her location. Today she is flying home to Los Angeles. Some sketchers met up with her at lunch and went with her to Waterloo. Managed to join Francis Theo, Chris Ng and Parka with her for some drinks and ice kachang and headed over to the Chinese temple to sketch. 

Before going back to work I did a super quick sketch and got her to sign it.

Felt good to meet her and bask a bit in her sunshine  before she left. Safe travels, Virginia Hein and hope to learn more from you and see your sketches online via your blog. See you again someday :) 

My First Ever Sketchwalk

The day I met the Urban Sketchers in Singapore, I knew that I have found my tribe!  It was my new year's resolution for 2013 to do something I really love and but just never gotten around to allowing myself to go for it. It was the January 2013, the first for the year.

I came in at show and tell so it wasn't valid but I made connections and caught a whiff that there was a regional sketchwalk at Chao Praya in Bangkok. It was good enough to get Madam Tia Boon Sim's email address and I emailed her about my interest! Bam! So I went and that was my first sketchwalk!

I missed my flight and took the next flight out. No one could pick me up but Mr Asnee Tasna told me where to go and I dove right in to the temple of the Reclining Buddha and sketched my heart out.
I was hooked!

Back in Singapore, the wild sketchers here are so fired up there was always someone sketching and if the weather was bad, we virtually sketched together! The interest for sketching here was like a fever that you would never want to be cured of! Haha!

an ode to odissi

She's my version of the founder of Chitrakala Arts, the ambassador of Odissi in Singapore. Sketched during the Shantanand Festival of Arts last year.

Today I revived my J Herbin pen.. 

The pen seemed ok after that soak and seems to be working fine now. 

ALL SOULS AND SAINTS DAY

Today went to church by foot and found out that it's under renovation. No access by foot. But by heart and spirit one can pray anywhere and anytime, anyday and all the time. The best way to commemorate lives is to keep living the best we can in the here and now. Offer the best you can with the time you are blessed with wherever you are planted in that way the clan lives on through you.... for the glory of the ones who paved the paths for us. Live it to the fullest...with the guidance and grace of Spirit, and the senses to find beauty everyday. rest in glory all souls and saints!

Navarathri 2014 TFA SINGAPORE

drawing as a kid and as an adult has been a mirror and companion and witness to my thoughts and my life. it's a written memory that has the power to anchor me to my experiences. i remember so much because of it. it has also brought me closer to people and helped me encapsulate memories in a language that is very personal. drawing illuminates. it gives me a certain quest for clarity between the relationships of people to each other and the environment. to get a likeness about living is what drawing is all about. it has saved me from not paying attention to everyday.

DRAWN TO LIFE

drawing is like a big big connection and connector to reality... almost like tracing life itself and our movements.. and lines do connect those dots and those days into one thread that puts it together into a weave to our future selves.

i love that feel of ink on the paper... some pens and pencils are like lipstick.. some are like figure skating on the paper. i love the act of harvesting these little moments and gestures before they completely slip away. it's like catching as much from a passing wind.. and everything is on the paper... all my waiting time has turned to great opportunities to observe and look at things intently even just for a brief moment of total connectedness to an act of seeing and feeling and sketching which i can truly call my own. they're like nuggets of my day.... and it's totally addictive and immersive. i am so happy that you have expressed it in such a way that i feel i am not alone and what a gift it truly is. you're a great inspiration, as the entire sketchbook skool is.

the biggest thing i love about drawing and drawing more is the fearlessness and zen of committing that line into a fresh page. that act of boldness gets better at each attempt without an eraser. i feel a lot braver. i also somehow relate to and cultivate less lines that can equally speak the truth.