Book Review: The Faith, The Dream by KC Lee

The Faith, The Dream by Malaysian artist KC Lee is the longest watercolour sketchbook I've seen.

This artbook is an accordion-style hardcover that measures 25 x 35.5cm. There's just one page about 17.5 metres long.

This published work is actually just a smaller version of the original sketch journal which is 88m long, and is recognised by The Malaysia Book of Records as the “Longest Sketch Journal by an Individual”. You can read about his achievements from this Vulcan Post article.

This artbook is already incredibly impressive. I can't imagine how amazing the original sketch journal is.

KC Lee (李根傳) is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He's an entrepreneur who founded Cablerod, a cable making company, and is also a painter and urban sketcher. I've had the opportunity to see him sketch during some of the international urban sketchers events and it's really quite a sight. He works on a really large canvas and all the watercolour sketches in this artbook looks just like the originals.

The paper is cream white colour, matte and the colours are well reproduced. The large pages really let you admire the details.

This artbook is a very personal record of KC Lee's life. KC was just 8 days old when he was adopted in 1959. Fast forward to 2018, he decided to sketch and record his life story, and that's how his 88m sketch journal and this book came about.

This book has sketches of places, buildings, villages from childhood that he revisited. There are also sketches of his adoptive and biological parents, family members, friends and other people in his life.

The stories of recollections of his childhood, interactions with people, culture in Malaysia and his experiences while sketching and painting on location. While I don't know KC Lee that well, I'm still moved by the stories. KC Lee was actually given up for adoption for some money because his father had a gambling addiction.

KC Lee was working in a restaurant when he met his biological father who was his colleague. It was only after he reunited with his siblings that he found out that his colleague was his real dad. What are the odds of that happening?

There are also stories of how he got into business, graphic design, construction, started a cafe, and Cablerod after that. He's a man who wears many hats.

This is just a few "pages" from the book.

This is a wonderful artbook. It is as beautiful as it is heartfelt. You can contact KC Lee on Facebook to buy. Link:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008348147555

Price of the book is RM 120 (~SGD 40, USD 30, £22, 25 Euro).

Shipping, unfortunately, is expensive since the book is heavy (1.5kg). Shipping charges are as follows (click for a larger view).

Look at the USD pricing column.