Bangkok Sketches part 2

In my previous post I talked a bit about going  in a new direction with my sketches.  Whereas previously my sketches were a weird jumble of things that I saw with no distinct purpose, I liked the exercise of drawing everything I could see without moving my head.  This forces me to put myself in a position where there's an interesting angle that I can draw.  As Paul Heaston said, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.  To add another degree of fun to my sketches I'm also now visually thinking of where I should be placing the text, so there's a little graphic design exercise for me there.

The left-hand page is from a boutique in Pratunam Market.  Aissa left me sketching while she went shopping.  I love the little detail of the dog lying underneath the clothes.  The right-hand page was made while waiting for our train to Ayutthaya.  Train stations and airports are visual feasts if you're sketching people.  They draw in all kinds of people, from the hippie backpackers in the background and the average Thai travelers in the foreground.

Filled with the vigor of my new sketching exercise, I decided that sketching in the train wouldn't be a bad idea.  Sure it was kind of shaky, but it turned out all right.  On the right hand side is a sketch of Aissa in Wat Phra Si Samphet.  I'm trying to get over my fear of sketching her.  A fear born of never being able to capture the image of her I have in my head.  She liked it, so that's what counts.

After tramping through temples we visited a night market and sat down to have dinner.  My eyes were drawn to this bedraggled man selling what looked like wooden flowers.  There's a part of me that always feels for the guy who looks like he's had a rough time.  Luckily, before we stood up, he'd had quite a few customers already.  I guess wooden flowers are really popular in Thailand?

The right-hand page sketch is the famous Buddha face lodged in a Banyan (Bodhi?) tree.  I had no idea, but turns out there were quite a few people leaning over and taking photographs of me sketching.  A white guy patted me on the shoulder and gave me a thumbs up before saying "Good job."  A Japanese man and his wife came over and started chattering animatedly about it, and looked through my sketchbook with choruses of "sugooiiii!".  I think they were pleased that there were sketches of Japan in there.

This "drawing everything" style can be quite tiresome, and sometimes when you rush it the perspective of things is all awry, like the bench on the left-hand page.  On the right hand side our train back from Ayutthaya was even shakier than the train going there, hence the wiggly lines.

This was the last sketch I made.  I was already feeling quite tired at this point, but I wanted to record the last few moments of our vacation.  Passengers had congregated in this area where there were a bunch of benches and comfy sofas to wait until their plane was boarding.

The copy I inserted to the left of the gate sign, "Everyone is just waiting to leave again." is my half-hearted attempt as something poetic, and isn't actually written there in real life.

Bangkok and Ayutthaya were fun, and I was happy to be able to visit some places old an new.  I'm definitely happy that I lived here once, and I think I would happily live here again one day.