Experience Shanghai through my eyes with early morning urban sketching during the "Golden Week."
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So great to be back into painting with watercolours are spending lots of time with other medium in my art journal. I joined Ohn Mar Win (@ohn_mar_win) and Clare Therese (@claretheresegray) on Instagram with their #7DaysofAutumnFlowers. I used a Fabriano Leporello Accordion Journal because of the size and I wanted to try this format of journal again. My watercolours are a mixed of Daniel Smith, Schmincke and Holbein. Finally, I decided to purchase a couple of local brands of watercolour brushes to see how they are against the international brands. Honestly, I am loving them! In the photo below (in the foreground) you will see 2 types of mop brushes…
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The hustle and bustle of the holidays is here again! How are you documenting this last month of the year? I feel it is even more important at this current point of my family’s life to document our life in Shanghai. So I am doing this via the annual December Daily project by Ali Edwards. I’ve lost count on how many years I have been documenting and every year has been different. Excited to be using a handmade album I made after sensing that my order will not arrive on time. (I will share photos next as these days have been a bit crazy, to say the least.) And in…
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I know. I know. I seem to be in the wrong season. But I feel posting this during the hottest time of the Summer may well bring in some anticipation of the cooler weather (I hope) that is just around the corner. Here are some of my favourite pages/spreads from Care December 2021. I used an old book and just randomly added art journal in between. I did not tear out pages for this one, just thought of going with the flow and see where this leads me. This post is actually way overdue with a lot of things happening. Nevertheless, it is good to go back and look at…
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Sketchbook all filled up! I started the this class during my trip to Taipei, Taiwan, late last year. This was a really good class especially when I spent a lot of days in hotel quarantine. I continued filling up pages when I was in hotel quarantine again in Shanghai. And now, I finished as we are surpassing the 1-month point of this whole lockdown. For this project, I was excited to find out I can order on Tools to Liveby and they could deliver to the quarantine hotel. So I ordered the Midori Spiral Ring Notebook B6 (watercolor paper) along with a couple other stationery. The paper was just thick…
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Perfect weather means sketching outdoors is even more exciting and inspiring. After days of dreary cold weather and plus being sick with a bad cough for over a week, I was just dying to get out and do some sketching. The venue for our sketching group was at the Duolun Culture Street, more specifically the old Protestant church called Hongde Church, formerly known as the Fitsch Memorial Church. The interior has been mostly been renovated as most of the church was damaged during the Cultural Revolution. Actually I did a warm up sketch inside the church (above), before moving outdoors to sketch the exterior; well, at least, part of the…
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Freezing cold but at least was a dry morning when we ventured out to the Changning District’s Sieh Yih Chapel. For this outing, I decided on doing vignettes. Brought a new sketchbook from SMLT Art and with the weather, I was fine with just doing a pen-&-ink sketch and alternating between with black and white brush pens. A bit of history Xiyantang, commonly known as “Xiyan Cemetery”, is also known as “The Ascension of the Virgin”, it was built in 1929 for the famous Catholic figure Ma Xiangbo and others, covering an area of 63 acres. The church in the cemetery is used for worshippers to hold burial ceremonies and…
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Almost 6 weeks spent in quarantine has come and gone. And I can say, “I survived!” Here’s a sort of breakdown of the days: Day 1 – arriving in Taipei, Taiwan Day 2 counts as first of the 14-day quarantine in Taipei Day 16-17 – time spent getting COVID tests to be able to return to Shanghai plus errands and meeting with family and friends Day 18 – arriving in Shanghai, China and first day of quarantine Day 32 – left quarantine hotel to quarantine at home Day 40 – finished quarantine and back at work For the first part of my quarantine in Taipei, Taiwan, all went smoothly. The…
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Xiao Nan Men area of Shanghai is mostly where a lot of old neighbourhood still remain, a maze of longtangs and old houses, in some areas, some “new” houses have been built. Part of this neighbourhood is up for demolition, reconstruction or in limbo. These old neighbourhoods are my favourite places to sketch because I can record a bit of the local life while sketching; sights, sounds, and smells. For this outing, I decided to stick to pen and ink sketches and journaling on the side. It was tricky to do any watercolour around where we were sketching. Location: Around Xiaonanmen 小南门; specifically Dafufang 大夫坊 and Heshunjie 和顺街 Thank you…
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On the other side of the Huangpu River, where the other outing with Drawing Shanghai was on the previous Saturday, is another fantastic example of the Shanghai government’s effort to redevelop areas that have been abandoned or neglected from closed down factories. What used to be polluted river fronts, now showcases footpaths, cycling paths, jogging paths, patches of parks and new developments to inject life into these remote locations. Weekends now see local population visiting these places, taking note of new developments in their city. So on this Saturday in November, our group of urban sketchers descended to the area near the former National Cotton Mill No. 9. It is…
