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Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Sketchpacking Bandung - Beginnings and Lesson Preps

Barely a month after my trip to Hong Kong, I'll be jetsetting again! This time to Bandung, Indonesia. Why Bandung? Well, it's an interesting story. Remember my Sketching George Town II: A Sketchpacker's Diary? I think it had something to do with it.

The Bandung sketchers were planning for the Bandung Sketchwalk #25 "Sketching with Friends" (International Edition) event months back, and they were looking for workshop instructors when Marvin Chew from our Singapore Urban Sketcher group suggested me. Me? Of all people? I thought. There were better artists out there by the loads! It turned out that they felt they had too many watercolourists already and wanted something different, maybe someone who works in a different medium. So I got contacted by Thamrin from the Bandung group. The original idea was to teach something about pencil sketching with storytelling. I figured it would be too much to teach two topics, so since they seemed more interested in the storytelling aspect, I figured we'd concentrate on just one of them and.... teach them how to tell stories!


I love telling stories. Loved it since I was little. I'd make up my own cartoon characters, write my own poems, draw illustrations, staple them into a book. I'd draw comics using my characters. Later as I grew older, I wrote stories, illustrated them, composed songs, recorded them, imagined animated sequences. I created worlds in my head.

Cartoons and comics have been my passion since I was young. Now I do more writing. But being a good comic artist means being good at both drawing and writing, so I guess it's an art form that suits me and my interests best. It took me years before I realised that my art, writing, music, etc. all centred upon one simple word: Storytelling. And here I was going to conduct a workshop on it! Rare opportunity indeed, and I couldn't say no.

So over the last few months I've been trying to come up with my lesson material, and to make it more interesting, I decided to transcribe it by hand. In cursive. In a Muji notebook:









Yes, I'm old-school like that.

Of course I made bulletpoint notes on OneNote first before writing them out. That was more for organizing my thoughts.

I've never been to Bandung before. The only bandung I know is that drink made of rose syrup and evaporated milk. My most frequented spot in Indonesia is Batam, but that's mainly for church camps. I don't have much of an itinerary planned, but I have a bunch of Singapore Urban Sketcher friends going who have some, and then there's the event programme. That failing, there's always the locals to consult on possible places to visit. Five days is not a lot of time, especially with 2.5 days spent in the event itself. If I hadn't run out of leave, I'd probably make my way to Central Java and pay Borobudur and Prambanan a visit. I'll probably make another trip to Java, who knows when? But in the meantime, I'm sure Bandung will be an eye-opening trip. I heard that the food is great too!

Alright. Back to lesson preps for now!

Chin Chow with Bandung.
The drink, not the place.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Sketchpacking Hong Kong 2015 - Day 3-5

Continued from Part 1

Day 3 - Stanley and an Old Friend

Kai Siang suggested we have breakfast at Yee Shun Milk Company. He liked the milk pudding so much! We went to a different outlet this time and had the hot version. There was quite a queue but it was worth it.


Milk pudding, beef and egg sandwiches, milk tea, and horlicks!

One more satisfied customer!
After breakfast we passed by a wet market on our way to catching the bus to Stanley, south of HK Island, a rather prime district next to the upmarket Repulse Bay. Both are coastal areas with nice beaches and seaside residences. We went around Stanley market before settling to sketch the famous Boathouse, which, again, is slated to be demolished to make way for a boutique hotel.

Prime residences at Repulse Bay
Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Stanley first look from the mall

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

The Boathouse
Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Sketching the Boathouse on the Perfect Sketchbook


Murray House

Stanley Ma Hang Park

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Murray House
Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Dog being fed ice cream



Sandy and Kai Siang were so engrossed sketching the Boathouse they almost forgot about lunch. I went and got us some sandwiches from a nearby cafe.

We had a dinner appointment in the evening with an old JC classmate of mine, so we left right after 5 pm and took the bus back to Central.

While waiting for our next appointment, Kai Siang and Sandy took out their sketchbooks. Sketchers never need to get bored!

Central, outside IFC
Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Hong Kong, City of Spires
Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015


Finishing up sketches from the afternoon


Dinner was at Greyhound, a Thai fusion restaurant. Peijun, my JC friend who is now living and working in HK looks like a supermodel. When Sandy first saw her, she went, "Wow..."

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Amazing to-die-for mango crepe

Old friends. Still young!

Day 4 - Easter Sunday

Kai Siang wanted to visit a church he helped plant some 6 years ago, so that's where we went on Easter Sunday. It's the first Easter weekend I spent overseas, I think. Interestingly, it ALWAYS rains on Good Friday afternoon in Singapore. Has happened for almost as many years I can remember. In HK, it was sunny and dry. And pretty hot.

After church, we caught up with the Urban Sketchers Hong Kong on one of their sketchwalks. Alvin brought us for lunch at Modi Cafe, after which Gary took us to Temple Street where we went up to the 8th storey of Yau Ma Tei Carpark Building to sketch the streets below. We met

Lunch with USK-HK

Boiled Coke with lemon and ginger??

Kai Siang enjoying Alvin's sketchbook

Tin Hau Temple


Temple Street Night Market. It never ends!!

Noble and Gary


My sketch
After I finished my sketch, a security guard appeared and told us we weren't allowed to sketch from in the building. We packed up and left in no hurry (the guard wasn't hurrying us either) and Kai Siang, Sandy, and I decided to do another take of the Peak. So off we were to catch bus 15 again! We reached the Peak just as the sun was setting.

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Queue for the Peak Tram. Which is why we took the bus.

Having caught our sights and gotten our photos, we made our way down back to Causeway Bay for some dinner and shopping. We caught the Avengers: Age of Ultron exhibits at Hysan Place too.

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015




Day 5 - Farewell, Hong Kong

Our flight was at 2:15 pm, which means we had to be at the airport at 12:15, which means we had to leave by 11. We had time to have one last breakfast with Sandy at an eatery below our apartment, a well-known HK dimsum place called Dimdimsum Dimsum. It was right under our noses and we almost missed it! Then again, we missed ordering their famed Po Lo Bun. Oh well.





After breakfast, we thanked Sandy for her hospitality and made our way to the airport. It would be a long delay and mad rush (who knew we had to check in at Terminal 2 then take a bus to Terminal 1 before we could board our flight - a process that took a whole 15 mins or so excluding the delay at customs).

On the brighter side, we were blessed with beautiful skies on the way home. I'll end with some of those photos.


Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015

Copyright © Favian Ee  Apr 2015