Jim Thompson House

The Jim Thompson House is an oasis in the middle of Bangkok. It’s a spectacular mansion (and surrounding property too), constructed from several traditional Thai houses dismantled from their original locations and reassembled to form the residence of the American entrepreneur and art collector Jim Thompson. He’s an intriguing character who established a silk company and later disappeared mysteriously in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. The house and museum are a popular tourist destination in the city, but to see the house you must take the guided tour. While waiting for my tour to begin, I had a bit of time to draw in the shaded courtyard. Of course I am thinking about all my Thai friends today after hearing about the horrific blast at the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok. The Jim Thompson House is located quite close to the site of the explosion, just a stop or two away on the elevated train line.

Siem Reap from a tuk tuk

I’ve probably already mentioned that arriving in Cambodia from Singapore was quite a culture shock. The first ride I had from the airport to the hotel was in a tuk tuk, and from there I was hooked, both for the slight breeze provided by the ride (the air was quite heavy when I visited) and the slow panoramic view of the town on either side. We travelled around quite a bit in these open-air vehicles — back and forth to the temples of Angkor, into the town to visit the market — and on a rainy day I even contemplated painting under the shelter of the awning but never got around to doing it. My favourite view of the tuk tuks was from a cafe in town. From there I could see the drivers in the shade of some Banyan trees by the river during their “off” time, which seemed to be mostly sleeping (and included being suspended in net hammocks).

I sketched this in a Pentalic sketchbook given to me by Stephanie Bower (I plan to write about her impressive lecture at the Urban Sketchers Symposium in a future post). If you haven’t tried this book yet, I would highly recommend it. The paper is 140 lb, 100% cotton rag paper and truly gorgeous for painting on — thick and creamy with a wonderful tooth to it. There’s only one format (5″ x 8″) as far as I can tell, but it’s perfect for travel sketching. I haven’t yet found a book that takes the paint as well as this.

My Singapore workshop location

When I booked my ticket to Singapore for the Urban Sketchers Symposium I planned on arriving a few days early so that I could spend some time sketching in my workshop location. I know other instructors did the same thing. I have to admit that when I first arrived in my designated spot I was a bit disappointed because the location was the campus of Singapore Management University (big plaza, modern buildings, lots of trees). I would have preferred one of the livelier locations like Waterloo Street with all its crowded temples, or Purvis Street with its colourful shophouses. But in time I grew to love my location, firstly for the shade the trees provided and secondly for the views of the Singapore Art Museum and the National Museum that are both situated on the perimeter of the campus and are visible through the trees. Below are a few of the sketches that I did in preparation for my workshop.

I recently watched a great video on YouTube of the symposium, put together by Drew Yu. There’s nothing like being there to really understand how exciting and stimulating an event it is, but this paints a great picture in case you missed it or are thinking of going to Manchester, UK, next year.

Tacking

Sketching today ends with shrieks. No, not mine. But let’s backtrack a bit.

It seems like a good day to paint clouds. After all the rain we had in Montreal yesterday, the sky is fairly turbulent and I am in the mood to be near the lake. There’s a sailing lesson going on so my subject is pretty simple. The kids in the boats are making a lot of noise, I guess because the brisk wind has them moving around the lake a fair bit. As I paint, I noticed the pitch of their voices rising, until it becomes shrieks. What I can’t see — but they can — is a giant black cloud moving towards us and coming up behind me. They race into the bay for shelter and as the big drops start falling I am able to turn my painting over and get it back to the car. Five minutes later the sun is out again. From what I hear, that just about summarizes summer of 2015 in Montreal.

An inadvertent souvenir

I really thought I’d get more painting done in Southeast Asia. Although I filled a sketchbook, the blistering heat prevented me from taking the time to do larger watercolours. I guess my winter car painting is just no training for hot weather. One afternoon at Ayutthaya, in the company of other sketchers, I found some time to paint Wat Chaiwattharanaram, a crumbling beauty of a temple, built in 1630. The light was rather flat with dark clouds on the horizon but there were not too many tourists around which made painting rather pleasant. When I was finishing up the painting in my studio today I noticed a little surprise on the surface: flecks of gold leaf had attached themselves to the paper — no doubt tidbits of the little gold sheets that worshippers place on the Buddha statues in temples all over Thailand.

A few Thai food sketches

Unlike many urban sketchers I know, I’m not much good at sketching during meal times. Just can’t seem to coordinate the eating and drawing at the same time thing. But the food in Thailand was so wonderful, the ingredients so varied, the markets so mysterious that I had to record some of it on my last few days. I filled part of a perfect little Laloran sketchbook with drawings done with a bent nib pen (many Asian sketchers use these) generously given to me by a Thai sketcher named Kim (who also introduced me to mangosteen). Some of the drawings were done in restaurants and some standing at market stalls. Some of the food I tried (frogs legs) and some I left for the next visit (durian).

The best memory I have of food sketching in Thailand is at the Pak Khlong Talat vegetable market in Bangkok. I was sketching the big baskets of hot red and green peppers when the woman at the next stall saw me drawing. Curious, she looked over my shoulder at the drawing, went back to her stall and returned with a stalk of lemongrass. And then a leaf of bergamot. And then a hunk of galangal. This continued for some time until she made a stirring motion with her hand and indicated to me that she had brought me all the bits I needed to make tom yum soup.

The oddest vegetables at the market were the giant green pods — tied up in bundles — that lined the street. I had to take a photo so I could identify them when I got home. Turns out they are called “stink bean” which could explain why they were always located outside the stalls instead of indoors.

Ink and sharpened twigs

Now that I’m back from Southeast Asia (and sitting next to my trusty scanner), I have a chance to take stock and write a bit about some of the things I learned at the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Singapore. When you are in the midst of it, there’s really not much time to do any of that because there are workshops, activities and events going on all day long.

The first thing I did today was scan all the drawings from my recent Southeast Asia posts so that I could replace the poor quality phone photos that I posted. I still have more to scan in the coming days but thought I would start with my very first twig drawing.

Regrettably I only had the opportunity to take one workshop — I was teaching during the other time slots — so I chose one called “Extending and Expanding: Combining Multiple Sheets of Paper to Capture Large Scenes” with Ch’ng Kiah Kiean. I missed Kiah Kiean’s demo at the Barcelona Symposium two years ago so was thrilled to be able to watch him work this time. If you don’t know his wonderfully loose and expressive work, have a look at it here on Flickr. He draws with sharpened twigs dipped into India ink —in fact very special twigs they are — because they come from a willow tree next to his house and the points are whittled down by his father. His method of working is to start the drawing on one sheet of paper and when he reaches an edge he grabs another sheet of paper and continues the drawing from there. If you look at the drawings on Flickr you’ll be able to see where one page ends and another starts. Sometimes they are composed of as many as five sheets of paper.

Our workshop location was the 10th floor terrace of the National Library in Singapore but the 3.5 hour session started with a Powerpoint presentation on Kiah Kiean’s work and his art tools. He has a interesting way of transporting ink to keep it from spilling: he fills small containers with cheesecloth (we used old film canisters) and pours the ink on top of that. Most of the ink gets trapped in the cloth and is less likely to leak in case of a spill, and yet there’s enough to dip the stick into for quite a long time without running dry. We had the opportunity to sharpen our own sticks (which did not come from the famous willow tree) and try his working method for panoramic scenes, the gist of which is to start with a spot that interests you and draw outward from there. Yikes! What about perspective and vanishing points? KK’s advice? Forget all that. Just draw what you see and when you get to the edge of paper, take another sheet and continue from there. And don’t forget to have fun.

He makes it look easy. It’s not. I started this sketch with the right sheet of paper below. First mistake. If you are right handed, work from left to right, not the opposite. And the twig thing is pretty hard too. Needless to say, you can’t control the flow of ink. You either have very black lines or dryish lines, but nothing in between. And it’s not easy to create tones except by using a big mass of dryish line. But I did have a lot of fun letting go of perspective and and not worrying if the drawing was correct. My sharpened twig came home with me in my pencil case so I can try this again in Montreal. I just have to remember to hold the twig loosely, and start from the left side!

On the Chao Phraya

The view across the Chao Phraya river to Thonburi is spectacular. Glittering, golden temples side-by-side with crumbling, ramshackle houses. A sketchers paradise, really. But the view that can’t be captured in pen because it changes so quickly is the flow of boat traffic on the water. Tourist boats chugging from dock to dock, giant barges (five or six chained in a line) pulled and followed by tugs, fancy hotel shuttles, and the noisiest of all — the sharp-nosed longtail boats that take you through the canals of Thonburi. Bangkok is hot, gritty and crowded so I didn’t sketch here as much as I had hoped but I’m glad I have at least one sketch of the river.

On the Nakornchaisri River

When you travel with local people you see hidden gems you might not find on your own. I know for certain I would never have found the Nakornchaisri River, nor the cafe on its banks. At first glance I thought it was a floating restaurant until I realized that we were not moving. In front of us was a continuous parade of water hyacinth on the water, big tangles of it moving quickly by, which created the illusion of movement under my feet. Occasionally a heron could be seen going along for the ride and once a huge, and likely dead, monitor lizard was caught in the mess of  leaves and roots. The effect was a bit dizzying and a sight that will stay with me for a long time.

With every sketching spot in Thailand there is an accompanying meal, chosen with care by our host to maximize the number of different ingredients we try.  I have been trying to record some of the delights that arrive on the table but these sketches are in a tiny sketchbook and will be posted when I get home.

The Bridge on the River Kwai 

Over the past few weeks in Southeast Asia, I’ve made the same mistake many times. I arrive at an iconic sketching spot (which has often been a temple) and I begin to sketch it immediately without even looking around the site. And because I usually sketch until the last minute, there’s never enough time to do a proper visit. Today I managed to do both. I drew from a floating restaurant below the bridge, and then, like many others, I crossed it on foot. Luckily I’m not afraid of heights because there’s a train that goes from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi on the Death Railway and I was on the bridge when it passed. There are small platforms you can step on to get out of the way, but they hang out over the river so don’t look down if you are the least bit acrophobia. I know this sounds like a guidebook, but it’s well worth the trip to see the views over the river and the hills of Burma in the distance.