My Awesome Cafe (7 Jun 2014)

I'm trying out Kremer Pigments watercolours. I'm not sure if I like it or dislike it.


Kremer Pigments, Saunders Waterford 300GSM, Faber Castell Pearwood Ambition

My Awesome Cafe is a pretty nice cafe at 202 Telok Ayer Street. Legs of the tables and chairs there are made of pipes. They look cool, but are really heavy. There were lots of couples there today, and some sketchers.

That thing on the table is an ammunitions box with paper towels inside.

Colours used are Titanium Orange, Irgazine® Ruby, Cobalt Blue Light, Phthalo Green Dark and Burnt Umber Dark Brown.

From Carver St to Oromo Coffee

These are the two sketches drawn yesterday at Carver St and Oromo Coffee.

I'm still evaluating the Saunders Waterford Coldpress watercolour paper. So far from what I've experienced, it dulls down the colours and the 100% cotton material really absorbs water too well.


This was coloured with Schmincke watercolours.


This was coloured with the new limited Winsor & Newton Desert Collection of watercolours. It's a predominantly warm set of colours that is very suitable for cafe sketching.

I applied the ink lines after the watercolours were added.

I've titled this piece "No inspiration at Oromo" because I had no inspiration of what to draw there. It turned out alright, I guess. Interesting thing to note is the two perspective planes for the table directly in front of me and the rest of the space.

Sketching at Tolido's and Artistry

Went back to Tolido's Expresso Nook and Artistry Cafe (at Jalan Pinang) again to sketch today.

Seems like Tolido's offering free coffee for Urban Sketchers Singapore when you order food there. So generous!


I'm starting a new sketchbook. This one's the Epilson series from Stillman & Birn. Paper is white. Works well enough for watercolour. It feels like Hot Press paper though with its smooth surface.

cafe hopping

I was still wide awake at 3am! Blame it on the coffee, lots of them last Wednesday at cafe hopping sketchwalk. So I scanned the pieces and put them together. The last two at McDonald were extra that I did at night when I went to the airport to send someone off. My very special 121212 sketches. Visit my flickr site to view individual sketches.

Singapore Botanic Gardens

Casa Verde means 'green house' in Italian. It is located at Singapore Botanic Gardens by the famed Les Amis Group. There is a pizza making viewing area for the customers at the end wall on the left of this sketch. This sketch was done at 3pm but customers were streaming in for pizza and meals and most of them chose to sit outdoor to enjoy the sight of greenery and sound from the mini waterfalls. I had BLT sandwich and a coffee as I missed my lunch today after music practice in the morning.

Kampong Glam Sketchwalk April 2012

Weather was great! Turn out was good. The results, astoundingly and amazingly awesome!!

Family Togetherness

I remembered the story behind this sketch quite clearly. That was like 3 weeks ago when the entire family including my mum decided to chill at this cafe named O'Briens at Singapore General Hospital after my dad went to sleep after his meal. For the first time for so long, the family was sitting down talking to each other. Its a wonderment how a crisis could bring everyone together. Though the atmosphere was grave, I was in fact a little happy and even touched to see that the family was standing quite united and supportive of each other.

Keong Saik & Bukit Pasoh

Teck Lim Road


Jiak Chuan Road


Maxwell Food Centre


Book Cellar at Bukit Pasoh

collage of sketches for Sep and early Oct

collage of sketches for July

My people and cafe sketches on Muji Sketchbook were interrupted in the month of May and Jun when the sketchbook was out of stock. So I restarted the Muji Sketchbook project in July. The cost of each sketchbook increased from S$4.90 to S$5.90, a 20% increase. These sketches were done primarily in July and all in one sketchbook.

first Japanese meal after so many portugese meals

at Udders

Weather was too hot and humid so a visit to Udders ice cream was a very good idea on a Sunday afternoon. Testing the paper for Books Actually, a local bookstore. It could not take the coffee splashes well but the end result was still acceptable.

21 x 15 cm Noodler's ink

Chocolate Bar at VivoCity

Max Brenner, the chocolate bar at Vivo City, has the warm and yummy chocolate fudge called Souffle that cost S$16.00 - expensive but just right for three of us with Macchiato Double and Cappuccino Frappe served in Alice cup, hug mug and kangaroo cup; aesthetically pleasing and well designed mugs. Like most of my cafe and people sketches, people came and gone so I had to sketch in quick lines and completed it with memory. My daughter sitting right in front of me became the model in this sketch.

people at the clinic and cafe

Sketch on top: While waiting to collect my medication after consultation with the doctor at room number 10, I sketched the crowd inside the Marine Parade Polyclinic. People came and went very quickly so I had to do speed sketching. I put 2105, the number assigned to me on the calling screen on top of the pharmacy counter.

Sketch below: After leaving the students from Marina Bay Promenade, I went to Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at Marina Bay Sands to have my meal and coffee. The "Wishing Well" called "Rain Oculus" which looks like an hanging inverted bowl structure is just outside the cafe. It creates a whirlpool motion above the promenade level with the water falling two storeys through a hole at the center of the Oculus. I was sitting in the cafe witnessing for the very first time, the water gushing down from the steel pipes and acrylic bowl above.

Best Thing Ever Happened to Me in 2010

After sketching at Thow Kwang Jungle Pottery a fortnight ago, a few of us gathered for supper at Kembangan. Eric said the best thing that ever happened to him in 2010 was to meet this amazingly talented group of sketchers. I couldn't agree more!

It was the July sketchwalk at Joo Chiat that I first joined USk-SG. I knew nobody in the group then, but just a couple of sketchwalks later, I knew almost everyone (well, most of the regulars) and everyone knew me too... apart from sketching, we share techniques, tools, tips, etc. and encourage one another to keep improving.... with some jokes and banters thrown in, be it in real life or online (usually via facebook)!

Here's one of my sketches at my first sketchwalk in Joo Chiat

Thereafter, I caught the sketching bug....

Sketched while having breakfast in my workplace cafeteria

Sketched in Pulau Ubin

Sketched in Grand Canyon during my US trip

Sketched at Toast Box, a local cafe

More to come....

Old lady at Starbucks

A sketch of an old woman at Starbucks, Liat Towers. I thought she glared at me, since I was drinking nosily, trying to get at that last bit of chocolate in my iced chocolate drink, so, I sketched her. I didn't manage to capture her evil glare as it was momentary. I got her face as she was engrossed in her laptop. Interesting face, hair and all. Pigment ink sketch and watercolours. 150mm x 100mm.

House of Timms

A sketch of the House of Timms at Wheelock Place. I have eaten there twice and I doubt if I would be back there for food, drinks maybe.

cafe sketches - coffee and people

Coffee Club at Siglap. This group of eight young ladies enjoyed each other's company and they were oblivious to people around them. A few of them would burst out into uncontrollable laughter but it was alright to me since they never got off from their seats so I could sketch them. Sepia colours are coffee stains. Can you spot the Coffee Club logo on the counter wall?

More cafe sketches on coffee and people on my blog.

Sketching people at cafes

Pigment ink, pencils, watercolours, Copic markers. Various locations this year. These were drawn over a period of a few months. Wendy's at Liat Towers, Starbucks at Bugis Junction, Spinelli's at the Heeren, Han's Café at Wilkie's Edge, Dr Café at ION Orchard. Sizes of each is about 150mm x 150mm.

The curse of our age, people tinkering with their mobile devices in most instances and bored people waiting. Only in one instance was a person eating and in another conversing.

*Dr Café, the Arabian coffee chain, has since left ION Orchard.

last page of my moleskine

I did a skyline sketch on the Sky Park at 57th storey the first time I was at Marina Bay Sands and a watercolour piece on the same skyline the second time I was there. The third time I did this sketch after a hearty breakfast at the Rise Restaurant on ground floor instead of the topmost floor. It was also the last page of the Moleskine. I also tried a different ink - Noodler's Peranakan Brown.