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Monday, November 23, 2015

A Sketchpacker's Retreat

I just took a short 5-day trip to Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. Cameron Highlands is known as the "Golden Bowl of Malaysia" and home to a vibrant farming and famous tea production industry. It is also home to the highest peak in peninsular Malaysia, Gunung Brinchang. The last time I went there was in 2001 on a road trip with some friends. This time I went there not to sight-see or sample the fresh produce and tea of the area, but for a more specific purpose - I went for a personal retreat. We did do a little bit of sightseeing, but we spent more than half our time there in our room looking inward and upward. The weather was cool and the air was clean. It was a wonderful time of praying, thinking, reading. I didn't do many sketches this time, but I finished a small sketchbook that I brought along. Here are the entries:

Copyright © Favian Ee  Nov 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Nov 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Nov 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Nov 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Nov 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Nov 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Nov 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Nov 2015

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Copyright © Favian Ee  Nov 2015

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Copyright © Favian Ee  Nov 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Nov 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Nov 2015

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Aotearoa: A Sketchpacker's Diary

I've been on 3 trips so far this year, but I still haven't finished my sketches from Hong Kong and Bandung from April and May. Thankfully, I've just completed my sketches from New Zealand (actually all but 2 blank pages that I left out with intentions to draw my packing list). I'll put up the drawings from my earlier trips in the coming months, but here are the New Zealand sketches for now. Enjoy!

Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

Christchurch Cathedral. Ruined by the earthquake in 2011.
They still haven't decided what to do with it.
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

View from the Tranzalpine train ride
from Christchurch to Arthur's Pass
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

Franz Josef Glacier
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

10-15 minute sketch at Haast Pass, where we dropped
some of our tour group mates for their river cruise.
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

Arrowtown
Queenstown
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

The view of the Remarkables mountain range from Queenstown.
Drawn during breakfast.
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

In case anyone is wondering, that's 2 different types of wool on the left.
Skyline Queenstown
TSS Earnslaw



Milford Sound
Te Anau
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

Dunedin
First Church of Otago
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

Moeraki Boulders
Steampunk HQ
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

You should really check the Medieval Mosaic out.
Lake Pukaki
Lake Tekapo
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

Kaikoura
Ohau Stream
Picton
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

Interislander Aratere
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015


Incredible work by Weta Workshop at the Te Papa museum.
Giant soldiers created to the last detail, pores, eyelashes and all!
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

Bulls - likely THE most punny place in the world!
Lake Taupo
Tamaki Maori Village
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

Agrodome
Te Puia
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

If there's only one reason for a Tolkien fan to visit New Zealand, this is it.
Hobbiton Movie Set
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

Waitomo
Auckland
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

Auckland Art Gallery
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

Remember to put your Manuka honey in your check-in luggage!
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

In case anyone is interested, we took this tour.
Copyright © Favian Ee  Sept 2015

That's all for now, folks! Kia Ora!

Monday, August 24, 2015

Home-made Watercolour Sketchbooks

What inspired me to go through all the trouble to make my own watercolour sketchbooks? It's silly looking back at it. I was packing my sketching kit for my upcoming trip and thought that lugging a whole Moleskine watercolour journal would be a bit too much, so I figured since I had a sheet of Strathmore Imperial paper lying around, I might as well use that and make my own sketchbook. I didn't need a whole Moleskine's worth of pages after all, I reasoned. But when I discovered that I would only be able to get 13 A5-sized leafs (26 pages) out of one sheet, I realised I probably needed to make 2 books and bring only one out at a time.

And so I did.

I didn't take photos of the process, unfortunately, but here are some photos I did snap after making the first one.


Double rubber bands. I forgot to include them for the 2nd book.

This is how thin the books are. This one uses 300 gsm Saunders Waterford.

The cover is made of 1 folded card and another couple of cards pasted over the outside.

The pages are not sewn but bound by thread so they can be removed and bound after the trip.

Back page is about 1/2 page. Can be used for testing watercolours.

This is the second sketchbook in progress. This one uses the Strathmore Imperial.


The 2nd cards haven't been glued yet. I totally forgot to put in the rubber bands for this one.
In the end, the 2 sketchbooks weigh more than 1 Moleskine. However, since I'm bringing only one around at a time, my purpose is still fulfilled.