Commencement of Watercolour Paintings

I was excited about this part of the project – painting has always been my favourite medium, watercolour being the paint I had probably used the most this year (mostly for the birthday cards and typography artworks I made for friends and family.) I’ve always enjoyed the versatility of the medium, being able to manipulate the tones of the paint by varying the amounts of water employed as well as the number of layers of paint applied. Yet what I was most eager about in approaching these sessions was the chance to paint in colour, and this desire to bring colour into the sites was fulfilled most in the three sites of the MND Building, Sports Lifestyle Centre (former Bukit Merah Swimming Complex) and Katong Swimming Complex (former Mountbatten Swimming Complex).

The MND Building was a sublime sort of blue. The reflection of the blue sky against the blue glassed panels was quite a sight to see, a mixture of a bright cerulean blue against deeper indigo. I blended my blue watercolour pigments in the wet rectangle I laid out on my watercolour paper, watching the shades of blue bleed into one another through the wet-on-wet technique. The blue windows were a stark contrast to the beige pillars in my first painting, defining the shape of the building and its highly geometric external facade. Curious to find ways to integrate the blue with the warm tones of the MND Building’s structure, I created a second painting while sitting under the roof of the entryway which I had learnt upon talking more with my uncle was the signature piece of the building. The sun’s rays poured through the blue paned ceiling, casting a sea of blue across the beams supporting the roof. This layering of light across the building was mirrored in the layering of my phthalo blue watercolour upon my mix of flesh tint and raw umber watercolours, creating a dialogue between a layering of light and colour.

Bukit Merah Swimming Complex was unexpectedly more enjoyable than I had anticipated. Amidst the giggles and squeals of children as they swam through the pools for their swimming lessons, I sat on the benches underneath the shade slowly painting the turquoise waters underneath the warm tints of the sun. Bukit Merah Swimming Complex is a rather quaint area, the pool tucked away in a corner of the neighbourhood, surrounded by a plethora of trees. Yet, its charm radiated through the red-tiled floors against the blue pools, something I delighted myself in when contrasting the warm and cool tones in my painting. I found myself unconsciously depicting the pool in a style reminiscent of Edward Hopper – an absence of figures, a love for the dreaminess of the golden sun, a sense of stillness in a cinematic scene. And of course, allowing the blues to mix with the orange tones on the damp watercolour paper to create an alluring greenish blue.

Katong Swimming Complex was without a doubt just as fun, perhaps even more so. The blues of the pool were slightly more subdued here, the sun being obscured by the grey clouds above. I found my attention being turned more towards the animal fountains by the edge of the kids’ pool, something my mother had remembered so clearly as a child – the yellow duck fountain in particular that she remembered sitting on under the heat of the sun. I utilised almost every colour on my watercolour palette, dotting the paper with little shapes resembling each of the ten fountains, being extra detailed with the duck fountain and the cadmium-yellow organic shape. Following this, I went on to paint other features of the pool, from the colour parasols that surrounded the pools to the well drainage systems.

Overall, the watercolour sessions allowed for greater focus as compared to the drawing sessions; each painting took on average between one to two hours as opposed to the quick sketches that could be completed within five to ten minutes. These sessions allowed for greater contemplation on the space of the site – What features do I want to dedicate time and energy towards rendering and painting? How does colour play a role in the nature of these buildings? How closely did the features I notice align with the features my grandfather was interested in rendering?

Such questions shall continue into the next stage of my project: creating the compositions, perhaps the most daunting task of them all.