5 Feb 2024

Weeknotes 10

Table of Contents
    Tumblr post that reads 'January was a tough year but we made it.' Posted by user 'bitchycode' on January 31, 2020.

    creative things

    Ink sketch of a hand holding an Apple pencil.

    In the past few weeks, I:

    • Built my listening room (and wrote a post about the process)
    • Participated in hourly comic day. Most years I do it traditionally, and they’re always extremely low-effort. I’m glad I drew quite a number of hours this year.
    • Drew more often overall, which feels really good!
    Ink sketch of the counter at a cafe, featuring various signage, a glass display case, and other cafe goods. In the foreground is a chair and table.

    thinking about doing next

    • /defaults page
    • future blog post: creative pursuits 2024, which has been a draft for weeks now lol
    • using instagram for art? maybe? I also learned about pixelfed, so maybe that. idk.

    on the internet

    Ink sketch of a hand holding open a book. From the book are speech bubbles in the form of computer windows.
    • Ten Gallon Tank by Jan De Wilde - not so much reading as it is a Cool Website. It describes itself as ‘overkill aquarium stats tracking’—‘overkill’ is such an delightful word for this kind of thing. I should aim to be overkill in all my endeavours.
    • Future CSS: Anchor Positioning by Roman Komarov – ugh, this would be wonderful. Its use with sidenotes is definitely the thing I’m most interested in.
    • The Quiet Death of Ello’s Big Dreams by Andy Baio – how depressing.
    • the experience of completing a sketchbook for my japan trip by Winnie Lim – I love this post. Winnie writes so beautifully:

      What is the point of working on and completing a sketchbook? In practical terms – none. But the entire process enriched my soul deeply. Each time I completed a spread it feels like I painted another layer of my soul. It is a full circle: having an experience that becomes a memory, pulling out that memory to make art out of it, then holding that creation in my own hands and seeing that memory take a concrete form – it enhances and solidifies the original experience that would otherwise have been quickly forgotten.

    • AI Art is The New Stock Image from iA – I don’t like AI art and this is a nice articulation of why it’s kind of…cringe.
    • Everybody has to self-promote now. Nobody wants to. by Rebecca Jennings for Vox – a depressing look at how ‘marketing’ and ‘branding’ are inescapable when trying to be an artitst, writer, musician.

    media log, highlights

    Ink sketch of Carmy's face, with rough cross-hatching.
    carmy, the bear
    • I’ve been listening to a lot of Naruto music recently, so much that it’s distorting my Spotify daylist and giving me stuff like ‘anime mangas friday night.’
      • For those of you who care about Naruto: my favourite opening is distance by LONG SHOT PARTY (shippuuden op #2), and favourite ending is undoubtedly Wind by Akeboshi (naruto ed #1).
    • I finished The Bear season 2. I liked it more than season 1—it was a bit calmer and had lots of great character moments.
      • Minor spoilers: loved Sydney eating in Chicago and the menu forming; Marcus’s trip to Copenhagen; the chaos of Fishes, of course; everything about Forks, which has the most incredible Taylor Swift usage; the front of house vs kitchen atmosphere of the soft opening.
    • I watched Royal Rumble. The athleticism in wrestling is so impressive. Maybe I’ll watch WrestleMania when it comes around? I want to see Rhea Ripley.
    • I logged back into the critically acclaimed mmorpg Final Fantasy XIV and did a bunch of extreme trials for the first time with my friends, which was exciting and also silly because I forgot how to play.

    in ordinary life things

    Ink sketch of some hot pot ingredients, such as shrimp and leafy vegetables.
    ingredients
    • Ate hot pot a couple of times
    • Stayed indoors during that week when it was like -14°C (which is unheard of in Vancouver)
    • Ordered an ereader, which is surely the thing that will make me read more.
    • Bought some new pens for drawing—I have a somewhat stupidly large collection of them, but I didn’t have any super thin ones. I picked up a set of sakura microns 005 (.2mm) pens, which I think will help with my cross-hatching problems. I used them in the drawings here.