Early morning sketching in Singapore

I’m just back from teaching a workshop at the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Singapore ( more on that later). As always the experience was exhilarating, exhausting and left me buzzing with new ideas to explore.

One of my favorite parts of the Symposiums is the informal early morning (6:30 am!) sketching sessions that have become a ritual. The days at the symposium are packed with teaching, talks and demos: mornings are often the only time to get in a sketch just for myself. There’s a quite a few sketchers who feel this way because we end up with a good sized group every morning.

This is the sketch group at 7am one morning.

And this is what it grew to within the hour we were there… I love how, anywhere you wander during a symposium, you’re sure to bump into other sketchers, and you can pull out your sketchbook and join them. (Photos courtesy Liz Steel)

Some mornings all we managed was a quick little sketch of a building behind our hotel. This one is the Singapore Calligraphy Center.

On other days we took a taxi ride to the Blue Mosque a little further away and got in two sketches before heading back. This first one with my bent-nib Sailor pen and then a second super-quick one with a brush pen.

And one day it was a messy (yes, even in Singapore) back alley in Little India.

A morning sketch session is lots of sketching ofcourse, interspersed with discussion about art, art materials and anything sketching-related. It’s fun seeing how different everyone’s approach is. Here’s that Little India alley, captured by Gail Wong, Liz Steel and me.

This is the Gold Mosque on Arab Street, captured on my very first morning in town. I must have got a late start that day, because the sun was out when I got there, and everyone had their umbrellas out. On days as sunny as this, a headscarf makes a lot of sense. I made do with a hat.

Photo by Don Low

More sketches from Singapore, and a recap of my workshop coming up next.