Two weeks ago, the Post Museum had its 4th Really Really Free Market. Jennifer, the curator, had always encouraged me to go during our SinQSA meetups. After my first try at caricaturing live the previous week, I figured it would be a great chance to practise and get my drawing times down.

Things started off quite slowly, but Dazzle took pity on me. She was leaving in several minutes to be an usher (doorbitch?) at Twilight Galaxy and was supposed to dress as an alien, but hadn’t found a costume. So she asked me to draw her as an alien in the hope that that would suffice. Talk about ingenuity!

I really think I could’ve done Dazzle better. First person always suffers…

Next up, Eric the Photographer! He was another person providing his services at the RRFM that day, taking fancy Facebook photos for people. You can check out his RRFM photos here, and also his regular portfolio at Sidewalk Galleries!

At this point there was quite a number of foreign workers at the RRFM, since this was Little India on a Sunday after all. Jennifer was having a heck of a time trying to explain to everyone that everything was indeed FREE, since everybody’s been brought up to believe there really isn’t such a thing (is there…?). Finally, Sam managed to persuade Moorthi to sit down and let me draw him.

Moorthi seemed quite happy with his picture and even requested to take a photo of us together (he has a better camera than me. Everyone there had a better camera than me). After him, many many more of the foreign workers seemed more comfortable with the idea of being drawn:

This guy had serial killer eyes.

This guy was the only chinese foreign worker there. He insisted that I sign off with my chinese name…!

This guy let me draw my first monobrow.

This guy looks as beatific as buddha! (save for the bling bling on his left hand)

This guy looks like the policeman from Allo Allo!

I think this guy really didn’t like his drawing…

As I was drawing all of the above I realised that I had entered some kind of trance state. In my head I was taking ages to draw each one, but Sam was telling me that my times were 7, 8, 9 minutes. There were tons of people crowded around me but I was only vaguely aware of my surroundings, all I could think of was what I was going to draw next. I guess that’s what people mean by “in the zone”. I was really thrilled because I’ve never experienced that kind of thing before!

In the midst of all this, Murli and Michelle (who invited me to the Harry’s charity caricaturing), henceforth to be referred to as Murlelle, turned up and demanded to be drawn!

I really liked how theirs turned out :) Here’s a close up:

All in all I had a really good time at RRFM. Firstly, I got my times down to a decent 10 minutes per head (on average), which was my target and which makes me feel a lot more confident about future events. Secondly, I just thought it was nice that I got to draw so many foreign workers because I think a lot of Singaporeans shun them and don’t treat them as individuals or human beings. Maybe I’m romanticising it a little bit but I do feel that being drawn might make them feel like they are recognised as individuals.