Lotus pond at Japanese garden.
The Japanese garden at Chinese garden.
It was built in 1974 on an artificial island in the Jurong Lake area connected to the adjacent Chinese Garden island by bridge named the Bridge of Double Beauty.
I can’t believe we still can find this kind of place in Singapore. The place is by the water and has been considered a jewel by many sketchers/artists. No idea if it is a river or a canal and the whole area is the industrial site. There are a few fishermen live in this run down place. A few steps further to the left is a slaugther house. The animal foul smell and crying noices can be detected and heard clearly while we were sketching. Apart from those, the place is very quiet.
Rumour has it that the garden will probably make way for the high-speed rail the government planed to build soon. It is kind of sad to see it all will disappear in the near future. The rail link connect Malaysia, Kuala lumpur and Johor Bahru with Singapore by 2020.
There are main and rear entrances to the Chinese garden. We have been using the rear one to sketch for a couple of times now. I so like it because it is closer to where I live and I don’t have to walk that far. Today sketch is of two red column pavilions. They are just a few steps from where the white bridge is (previous sketch).
I am so happy that we have a mentor now. He comes to the garden daily to exercise and promises to teach us how to sketch. We’ve been told when sketching we need to pay attention to the composition. The subject of what we are going to sketch must be visible in shapes and shades. The rest can be blurred. Our mentor also told us not to sketch exactly what we see. But draw what we think it should look like. It is alright to add and omit things that we see does/not look nice in the composition. Those big trees, boulders and a person were there because I placed them there. Is this what you call improvise? Happy Saturday and take care.
We still sketch at the same park for now. There are so many things we can draw. The white bridge is one of them. While we were drawing last Tuesday, we met an old retiree art teacher. I know him when we all went for karaoke two years ago. He gave us some pointers to what we ought to do when to do plein air. Hopefully my next drawing will improve. This is my last post this year and I will see you again in 2016. Happy New Year!!! Take care.
Second sketch day was an hour earlier than last time and it was kind of cloudy that morning. Two more friends managed to join us. Bonsai garden inside Chinese garden was where we stopped and made the sketching.
My friend May who stopped painting gave me a newly bought 300 gram/m2 aquafine Daler Rowney watercolour block sometime ago. I tried painting several times on this paper but it did not turn out as I intended to be and the book has been in my drawer for many months. Early this morning, I wanted to do some sketching using pen ink on paper. In the middle of sketching I thought of using charcoal. I had never done any charcoal drawing. This is what I did. Happy Saturday!
brushes and papers
brushes and papers 