Late Night coffee bean: thank you night shift

Late night, sooooo late night. Two or so in the morning or something ridiculous like that. The only thing more amusing is that the cafe was fairly full of people, all very happy, awake and mostly socializing. I perked up after a while and managed to use some of the ink brush pens that were starting to feel ignored. Not sure if I like how all the plants came out in the end, but definitely fond of the guy wearing a cap indoors.

Chilling late night at Starbucks

Taking advantage of operational hours in Singapore, coffee shops closing early at midnight or not at all, I decided to drive in the small hours and get some drawing done in my last days of Asia. Couldn't stay awake for a full cafe sketch, despite the coffee, but managed to get some girls who'd obviously settled in for the night with they're big display of mugs, cups and saucers. Most happy with capturing the legs of the short haired girl in front. She had olympian calves.

Free Hugs near Starbucks

Free hugs were being dispensed outside the Orchard Starbucks I usually frequent. Didn't get any myself but had spotted several shoppers sporting a red paper heart shaped badge earlier and was glad to have the mystery explained.

But there was still more to ponder. Like who organizes these free hug groups.

I always meet the idea of 'free' with suspicion and a mildly fanatic eagerness-the kind that will have you elbowing your way through minors and seniors while pumping your hand franticly in the air going ME! ME! PICK ME!.

It's odd but something you wouldn't look at twice suddenly becomes much more appealing when there is no price tag involved. It's like there is a special sheen of attractiveness that coats free products, and I think just about everyone will agree that free food just tastes better.

Such is the allure of free.

There is the eagerness, but now for the suspicion. I understand free items attached to businesses, you try once and hopefully you buy later. But free hugs? First of all, who would ever come back later willing to buy a hug? And secondly, who is paying these people to offer their friendly comfort out to the public? Is it corporate owned? Government? or one of those self banding groups that decide to do fun things for the community in their spare time.

Of course all this speculation stopped the minute the Free Hugs group decided to call it a day and headed into Starbucks for a drink. Then there was regret. The kind you get when you wake up from an uncomfortable sleep on a plane and realize everyone but you has a warm towel. Or when you decide not to go to that boring office get together and find out later that there was free beer, and someone brought cake.

So here is the voice of hindsight: forgo your suspicion and give way to eagerness. When next met with free hugs, don't question, just squeeze that willing participant and bask in the happiness that is inherent in both Free and Hug.

Adrift: missed out again

Just a little something I made for Illustration Friday, but sadly I missed the deadline.

I blame the 8 hour flight from Singapore to Sydney,

and the 8 hours of sleep that followed.

Hope you all enjoy anyway.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy New Year!

Hope you all have a good time in the Year of the Tiger

More of Bear

Blogger is messing around with my colours again, had I been happy with them in this image it would be much more annoying. Alas the texture on my watercolour paper is driving my scanner mad. The scanner refuses to let the blank unpainted section in my image to lie in the background. After some equal treatment the grain is now smugly sitting in the foreground.

I've tried everything in photoshop from levels and curves to hue/saturation. My problem is the paper is received as a yellow, a main colour in the rest of image, to change it in any way distorts the overall colour scheme. Which was changed anyway by scanner and photoshop and blogger. If anyone has a magical solution to my problems please inform me. But otherwise enjoy the transport adventures of bear.

The smokers outside Takashimaya

Close up

This was actually finished on two separate occasions due to me leaving the country. I had wanted to draw the guardian lions that stand in front of Taka opposite the smokers when I originally started this image, but ran out of time.

After I returned to Australia other drawings and pages got filled in and this one got left behind. More than a year later, after scouting through the remaining pages of my moleskin, I remembered what I had planned and returned to roughly the same place I was sitting to finish this image.

The resulting differences in style and pen can be seen but I think its a nice contrast.

Flamingos catching some Z's

Do not disturb the Flamingos