National Monument @ Kuala Lumpur

I was in a hurry to get away from the tourists that I forgot to sign this work!

I have always wanted to sketch the National Monument but had always been intimidated by the figures, the sheer size of them and the various poses that make up this bronze structure which marked the nation's struggle towards Independence. Finally today, armed with a simple Kokuyo watercolour set and a Rotring sketch pen, I decided to grab the bull by its horns. This above is the result.

The drawing took me
 less than 15 min

The National Monument is located within the Lake Gardens area, just behind the monolothic Cenotaph. It is surrounded by a moat and fenced up. I decided to only keep to the monument because of the challenging conditions - getting the proportions of the figures right and deal with foreshortening. Instead of trying to draw what I knew, I decided to allow my experience in countour drawing to take over. And this drawing technique came to my rescue.

Colouring was much easier, with two layers of paint to depict the different tones and a combination of earth colours and blues aided in showing the greenish-brown disposition of the oxidised bronze statues. The flag was simply painted with stripes of red across the white paper. It would have been great if the day had been windy as I could capture the flag full blown.

He was preparing to shoot
when my photographer snapped
his picture first. He left.

Not making it any easier were the hordes of tourists who were there. Some just looked over my shoulder without commenting; others complimented. There was one Chinese tourist who decided he wanted a close look over my shoulders when my photographer decided to take a snap of him, and when he realised this, he decided to keep his camera and walk away.