More from Singapore, drawings from Coffee Bean

 

I sort of went on a mini pen binge with this one.  I had just bought expensive pens from Muji and couldn't decide which one to use...so I used all of them.    

Pokolbin Village playground

I did my first trip over to Hunter Valley recently, and between wineries and hotels I managed to find an incredibly cheesy fake tourist village. Full of faux homey restaurants (which always seem to have large realistic cow statues) and village shops selling Hunter Valley chocolates (as well as flavored liqueurs available in man shaped bottles) this little tacky respite from grape ferment was surprisingly enjoyable.

There was a bright cheery family orientated feel to the place where previously we'd only come across tittering groups of twenty something’s often vibrating with either a single chicks vibe or pre-marriage hen's night excitement, that and couples.

The fresh squeaky clean attraction left me wondering however who would plan a family outing to an area famous for its booze, let alone plan and build the architectural duet to Disneyland in the Hunter. Leading from assumptions, Pokolbin Village might have been built to accompany the nearby heftily priced Hunter Valley Gardens.

Some entrepreneurial spirit might have noticed many visitors such as myself pause at the $25 entry fee for landscaped gardens and back away without turning, comfortable with trying to peer over the garden’s walls and content with posing for photos in front of their entrance sign and flower display. Understandably the gardens were a thing of beauty, left for weddings and corporate functions. While the village was for people who enjoyed picnic facilities, small town layouts and playgrounds: the complimentary things in life.

During the day the eager bustle of young families in this convenient stop over was infectious, the entire place was made for eating, playing and buying edible gifts. At night however, the sterile timelessness of this kitsch counterfeit community reminded me somehow of Melbourne suburbs. The nice ones that had gone up maybe a little too fast near distant train stops, sudden suburbia of large homes and preened front gardens still awkwardly sitting next to un-cleared land. After sunset and without the neon diffuse of surrounding urban development you felt like you were walking in an empty movie set. Where at any moment the cardboard facades could pitch in the wind, leaving the land to move back in.

There were spots of what I imagine to be forests left in the Pokolbin area. They might've simply been scraps of the original landscape or windbreakers for the wineries and picnic spots for tourist locations. Whatever they were, though unnoticeable during the day, at dusk they gained a solidity. Something we noticed when we accidentally stumbled across the Pokolbin village at around 4:30pm. As one of the awkward late visitors wandering in the deserted tourist village I think we were struck by the lack of lamps and the disparity of the theme park image and its location. Time in the Hunter still runs by sunlight and with all the shops closed and an hour or so left of manageable light I managed to make a brief drawing of the enjoyable and eerie juxtaposition of the empty playground backgrounded with sparse woods.

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.

More floating heads

More displaced heads for the 2009 journal. Not too many of them because I managed to move twice and still find myself under the intense flow of the 24hr Starbucks aircon. After a frappacino (a bad one! ...have no idea how they can do that they measure it all out in a cup) well, ice, air con, nighttime, I ended up being too cold to draw. A strange feeling to have in Singapore.

Still managed to get a few down this time combining my ink pen and biro to have nice strong lines and subtle shading. My favourite is the girl at the top, where I think the double combo of pens comes out the best. In a couple of the others however its like a bad DC and Marvel crossover. But some crazy people enjoy the Universe crash so I hope there's a floating head here for everyone.

More ink pen!

Here are a couple of displaced heads snuck into the remaining spaces of my moleskin. There are bizarrely spaced empty pages between to do lists, diary notes and sketches. Perhaps I left room to write down a memorable event or maybe I thought I needed at least one or two full page spreads to adequately caption the previous image I had just spent several hours drawing in an attempt to have the picture say the 1000 words I didn't feel like articulating.

In spite of all the leftover space, or perhaps because of it, I jumped the gun and bought a new sketchbook. I promised myself that I wouldn't open the plastic until I had saturated every last available space in my old book. But the promise is growing thin, and as the allure of breaking the seal and smelling the fresh virgin pages calls I am starting to hurry through the awkward process of filling up cracks in my 2009 diary.

Hence the floating heads. They are a fun challenge whenever I am a little too tired to do a full scene, or when one will simply not fit onto where ever I seem to be drawing. But hopefully they will retire with the old year model soon and before the new month waxes over I will start on new and exciting full bodied and unrestricted images.

Haircuts of Asia

Hairstyles in Singapore are intensely fun to draw. Even in a seemingly normal and boring cut, like a shaved head, there are random growths and curls emphasized by gel or other styling products. My current favourite cut looks like someone has attached a giant fluffy toupee to a normal short male haircut. Unfortunately they haven't clamped it down properly and half of it has fallen off and is alive in the wind, while the other more reasonable side is muffining over the edges of the young man's head.

Amazing.

I didn't quite catch that particular look here at one of my favourite food courts, but I did manage to gather quite a few examples of the asian style with my brush pen.

New Pen, old subject

I've bought a new pen! It's a brush tip pen from copic and I'm having some fun with mark making that isn't as easy or as rewarding with my fine tipped biro. I originally didn't like brush tip pens, convinced that they couldn't give a range of line widths or have nice delicate little lines without the horrible hand shake visible.

I liked the idea of them, and I enjoyed seeing what others were doing with them (Matt Huynh!) but when it came down to using them results were never encouraging.

Until I realized my mistake!

I have been using large brush tip pens. Large brush tips do have a fine point but they need a very careful and experienced hand to find them, which I don't have. Smaller brush tips have a more delicate line, making those quick thin marks accessible while still have some weight and fluidity to the longer and thicker lines.

So I had a little play with both, messing around in this image with another way of describing hair, and the chairs I know and love down at coffee bean.