As I was saying, I spent about 3 weeks alone in Chiang Mai, Thailand last December. I just posted my sketches from the previous week in Singapore, and now here are the Thailand sketches! Honestly they're mostly a bunch of wats.

Wat Khuan Khama (near some of the best khao soi in town, Khao Soi Khun Yai)

Wat Fa Ham (near the other best khao soi in town, Khao Soi Lam Duan)

I got around mostly by songthaew. You hail these little red trucks and tell them where you want to go, and if you're lucky they say sure and name a price. It's usually ~20 baht anywhere in the old city, and more if you want to go further afield. This is a pretty great deal as compared to how much you'd otherwise pay for a tuk-tuk.

If you can't catch a songthaew, you take a tuk-tuk. On the plus side, it's just you and therefore goes exactly where you want with no side-trips to drop off other passengers. On the down side, it's an order of magnitude more expensive.

Bird's Nest cafe was practically around the corner from where I was staying, so of course I spent lots of time there. Great tea, and a view of yet another lovely wat

Wat Pha Bong

Another take on Wat Pha Bong

There were a few kids playing music and accepting donations near the big Saturday night market.

I wish I could remember where this wat was.

Or this one.

I kept going back to this lady, since she was willing to serve me food that was actually moderately spicy.

Fish!

I went traveling alone last December, spending about a week in Singapore followed by three weeks in Chiang Mai, Thailand. (And then Dave met up with me for a week and a half in Taiwan at the end, but I didn't do much sketching there since I was with him.)

I tweeted my sketches as I went, but since it was such a fantastic trip I really wanted to gather my favorites together in one place here as well. (I'll post my Thailand sketches separately, soon!)

Abdul Gafoor Mosque was just a few blocks away from my hotel!

I had to walk through the sky in Gardens By The Bay, of course!

Just a charming walking path I stumbled across.

A very nice strangers stood quietly watching me sketch this motorcycle for a long while, then apologetically interrupted me and told me that he had to leave. I was super confused at first - I hadn't realized it was his bike I'd been sketching the whole time!

A friend of mine insisted that I had to visit HDB (public housing) while I was there, so I got to sketch laundry drying in Everton Park.

These small shrines were ~everywhere.

I was obsessed with the coffee lotus buns at this one place over by Cassia Crescent.

So obsessed. I should make bao more often now that I'm home!

Since my Singapore trip was so food-focused, I feel I ought to end with these dirty dishes and birds that kept trying to eat them clean!

Man playing harmonica on the 2 train:

Another man on the train:

A lady on the phone at Starbucks:

Dave, asleep on the bus, hiding from the light in his hoodie:

On my way to the train one morning a couple weeks ago, I saw this marvelous flock of pigeons on top of a gorgeous brownstone.

And here are some folks I saw on the subway over the past few weeks:

And more subway folks:

Still more subway folks, but these were done with a fountain brush pen:

Really cute kid I saw on the subway a few weeks ago:

(Hero M86 fountain pen with Noodler's Kiowa Pecan ink; watercolors from my bestest little altoid tin palette)

Actually, on that note, this is the travel palette I built that I use nowadays:

I used hot glue to create 9 separate compartments in a teensy tiny mini Altoids tin, which I hot glued to a rectangle of cardboard.

(I also glued in a bit of scrap dry-erase board stuff left over from when we redid the upstairs hallway for mixing, but I don't think that part is strictly necessary.)

I have a cool trio of primary colors (lemon yellow, scarlet lake, ultramarine), a warm trio of primary colors (indian yellow, permanent rose, and phthalo blue), and at the bottom as extras I have indigo and a bit of titanium white goache.

I keep a waterbrush in my pen case, and that's it, easy and tiny.

It works basically like this, with the other end of the cardboard stuck between journal pages to hold the palette very conveniently in place for me:

View from The Elevated Acre at 55 Water St., NY, NY. With helicopters!

View when returning to the street from The Elevated Acre:

A lovely building just north of Union Square:

I took a walk back on September 18th on my way to grab groceries, and sketched bits of the three churches on 7th Ave fairly close to my apartment. I really love how they turned out, especially when I used the waterbrush wash technique only for the windows in finishing them up!

Grace United Methodist Church

Old First Reformed Church

(My absolute favorite bit here is the birds who were hanging out in the window, where I did the wash around them to highlight them.)

Memorial Presbyterian Church

God, I'm so in love with my $13 Hero M86 fountain pen, and the fraction of my $1.50 sample of Noodler's Kiowa Pecan ink that I stuck in there. I have a favorite sketching implement, all right! It's such a weird, nifty little tool.