A Turkish mosque: Tokyo Camii

I knew there is a mosque not far from a station where I often transfer whenever I go to Tokyo but until this day I had no chance to visit there. So I determined to stopover and sketch it. What a charming and solemn place!





I don't think this drawing does justice to the sacred, sublime beauty enough, I was in awe and filled with purifying chant at that moment.. I hope this doesn't offend peoples mind, there should be strict manner, meanings of each form which I hardly be able to pick correctly.

$uper $ingapore $ale art exhibition, Singapore

Tia, Don and myself recently took part in a group exhibition, inspired by our crazy annual Great Singapore Sale. Timed to precede the start of this city wide shopping event, this exhibition delves on the rising consumerism in Singapore. This is what we do when we are not urbansketching.             TIA next to your acrylic painting depicting her favourite cafe scenes and two fat ladies sharing a small burger after their shopping spree.

        This is one of my four pieces of artwork which was specially created for the exhibition. This photograph shows you the process of how I combined my love for on-location urbansketching, watercolour & paper architecture to create something new. It was fun cutting up my sketches and painting and reconstituting back together to tell my story. This piece is entitled 'My Appetite, My Wants'. I was inspired by how some of us confuse our needs & wants and would rather sacrifice food to buy an expensive pair of shoe or bag.

Oahu

On my first trip to Hawaii earlier this month I was excited to draw the tropical surroundings as a nice break from drawing around San Francisco.

I definitely wanted to try sketching with colour on this trip - but my water-colour skills are pretty lousy and I just couldn't capture the vivid Hawaiian hues.

I resorted to black & white sketches when lack of time necessitated that approach

More on the blog

Urban sketching in Naples

Today I was at Riot in Palazzo Marigliano to get things ready fot the first Urban Sketchers Workshop that starts tomorrw with me, Caroline Peyron e Laura Scarpa. I couldn't resist to draw in the garden and I noticed this incredible color of palm fruits - impossible to reproduce. On Sunday we'll have an open Portrait Party in this garden, at the end of workshop. Hopefully the seed of sketching will have its fruits in Naples too.



Among participants we'll have professionists and beginners, architects, illustrators, photographers, students, medicians, coming from Liverpool, London, Jena, Singapore, Taiwan, Barcelona, Milan, Rimini and Naples... it seems that we are going to have fun!
Local newspaper translated officially Urban Sketchers in "Disegnatori Urbani": il Mattino di Napoli.

searching unpost sketches ....

original paper size 48x18 cm, drawing pen & water color

 

It has been too long not to post on the blog. Until the board remind me .. this drawing were done a few months back that I always wanted to post but I have problem with the scanner...  Two sketches were done in the morning at the port with different technique. Another one is showing my tools on the table. The  paper I use is a recycle paper  ... I hope it brings back my spirit of sketching.

Fair

Every year we have a street fair on our block. Brooklyn and new York have these kind of things all the time. The one on our block is an exception. Our block has a few of the best restaurants in New York. Prime Meats, Buttermilk Channel and Frankies. The restaurants do their own outdoor cooking. Not the usual street fair food. They are roasting who;e pigs and there are rib smokers going all day long. All the bars put tables on the street. You can buy food and take it to any bar and eat it with some good brews. I always look forward to our unusually good street fair.

Recycling houses

On Saturday our sketching group went to a salvage yard out North of the city. We were a bit dismayed at first at the unattractive scenery, but started drawing the piles of wood, tiles and bathroom fittings and were soon absorbed in the shapes and shadows, and comings and goings of people loading stuff onto trucks. By the time I was on the last typically Johannesburg landscape of dusty road, dry wintry sun and long grass turned to gold (top), I was really enjoying myself - just as the foreman came to say they were locking up, time to go home...

鹹魚仔巷 Fish Lane

Size: 28 x 76 cm
Media: Chinese ink on paper

Vanishing Point

Summer Sundays are the quietest days in an Italian town. The ordinary hush of midday becomes perfect stillness, complete emptiness. Sitting and drawing the shuttered newsstand in Piazza Giuseppe at noon, I notice that I've happened upon a vanishing point for the last few people in Viterbo.

Under the canopy of a solitary tree, a series of senior citizens arrive one by one at ten minute intervals. Each stands briefly under the tree until a car pulls up. Most often, a child opens a back door, allowing the grandparent to join the family in the back seat. As the cars swing around the piazza and out through the walls of Viterbo, I see beach toys poking out of the back of the car. 

Making Of - Part 04 and 05.

More photos and sketches from the filming of the short film about my work.

European maritime day

Last weekend, port cities in Europe celebrated the european maritime day. It was the perfect excuse to spend some time enjoying the sea and the ships. So there we went a group of local sketchers, to the harbour, challenging the dark grey clouds over our heads that threatened to pour heavy rain on our sketchbooks...

As it often happens here, especially this time of the year, at noon the sky cleared up completely, making a fool under a shining sun of us that had preventively attended the meeting with an umbrella in hand, just in case... By then, the basin was packed with small boats, and the dock crowded with people enjoying a nearly summer afternoon. When I got home I was sunburnt!

on the balcony

Sketching off our balcony at the end of the day.

Tel Aviv beach on Japanese Moleskine

I have to say that Japanese Moleskine is just perfect for beach sketching! I could enter endless Tel Aviv beach with its never stopping crowd into the sketchbook without cutting the flow and even to leave more space for the next beach sketching day!

Rome Sketchcrawl

I only managed to make it for about 30 minutes at the Rome Sketchcrawl this past Saturday ... I was busy welcoming the new group of students. It would have been nice to have more time and meet more of the local sketchers, but hopefully next time. I did get a chance to do a quick watercolor of the Lateran Obelisk - the largest in the world. It was originally carved in the 15th century BC, then brought to Rome in 367 AD to be placed in the Circus Maximus. It was rediscovered in 1587, and re-erected by Domenico Fontana in 1588 (that's a brief summary of the text at the bottom of the sketch). If I'd had more time, I would have added the buildings that were in the near-distance behind the obelisk, but I actually like the way this turned out ... it gives much stronger emphasis to the obelisk itself. It's good to be back in Rome, lots to draw! 

old and new buildings at Seochon village, Jongno-gu, Seoul

Sajikmun (gate) at Sajik Park, pen and watercolor, 21 x 29.5cm

a Hanok ( Korean traditional house) Guest House, Tongui-dong, pen and watercolor, 21 x 29.5cm

a traditional house, Tongui-dong, pen and watercolor, 21 x 29.5cm

The House of Lee Sang (a famous poet), in Tongin-dong, pen and watercolor, 21 x 29.5cm

Paiwha Girls' High School Main building, Nooha-dong, pen and watercolor, 21 x 29.5cm

Paiwha Girls' High School Dormitory, pencil and watercolor, 21 x 29.5cm

Paiwha Girls' High School Main Auditorium, pen and watercolor, 21 x 29.5cm

Paiwha Girls' High School Gymnasium, pen and watercolor, 21 x 29.5cm

Woori Bank Hyoja-dong branch building, Tongin-dong, pen and watercolor, 21 x 29.5cm

an old fashioned complex building, Pilun-dong. pen and watercolor, 21 x 29.5cm

Seochon, an elegant village stretching from the west wing of Gyeongbok Palace to the base of Mt. Inwang, is a place with a background of the 600-year historic city of Seoul. Besides Seochon is well known as a famous historic village where traditional houses and modern architecture coexist. This village is full of subject for sketching, such as, traditional houses, government office building, convenient faciIities etc. Especilally there are some cultural properties, for instance,Sajik Park built around a stone altar called “Sajikdan (Historic Site No.121)”, Paiwha Girls' High School and College with a history of 100 years.

Last Saturday, I enjoyed strolling around Seochon village and sketching the variegated sceneries with Seoul urban sketchers all day long. It was a valuable experience at the familiar atmosphere!