14 Jun 2026

Weeknotes 40

Table of Contents

    Happy weeknotes number 40! I thought about doing something special for this, but realized I have too many unfinished projects that I would rather work on instead. Perhaps when I hit 50.

    Once again, too much time has passed since the previous entry that I’ve forgotten what’s happened and what I wanted to include.

    Plein Airpril

    I finished 30/30 days of the plein airpril painting challenge! This was my third year doing it and my first time doing all 30 days in an art challenge.

    A grid of 30 digital paintings.

    It was a lot of fun! I started off feeling quite rusty, having not painted much since last April (and I wonder why I don’t improve…) but by the end I was feeling much more confident in my abilities.

    A few firsts this year: I started using a solid brush in Procreate; I used some movie frames as reference instead of strictly my own photos; I painted a bird.

    Some highlights:

    Digital painting of drinks and half-eaten dishes on a metal table. There are two cocktails, one with a stick of lychee on top, as well as a glass of water. There are lots of highlights and shine on the various glass and metallic surfaces.
    Day 5. This was the longest I spent on a painting (2h40m), and it was challenging because of the glass, which I underestimated lol
    Digital painting of a car passenger view of a road, fields, and mountains, all under a blue sky with low, fluffy clouds. The colours are vibrant, and it’s painted with a solid brush without any blending.
    Day 9. This was the first time I used a solid brush in Procreate, which I think was a turning point—it was interesting not being able to blend, and I had to think more about my colour picking to provide the right levels of shadow and contrast. In the end, I like how it came out and it's one of my favourites.
    Digital painting of a KitKat on my desk. The metallic red foil glints brightly. Next to it is a brown pen, and a random white cable hangs across the frame. The brush strokes are all very blocky.
    Day 14. I'm surprised by how much I like this one. I painted it with my mouse, so all the shapes are quite jagged but also interesting. The wrapper's metallic shine is my favourite part. It was scary to pick such a bright red but I think it turned out well.
    Digital painting of a sculpture of a boy aiming a slingshot of his own eyeball. The sculpture is of a reflective, mirror-like surface that reflects the surrounding art gallery into distorted shapes. It’s painted in solid, blocky brush strokes.
    Day 19. This was the hardest one, which I picked specifically to challenge myself with the reflections. It was so confusing! I had to trust the process and force myself to paint the shapes I saw, rather than trying to paint what I thought, say, a window would look like. It was fun to paint the five different places where I'm reflected in this—the blobs of my outfit and skintone are consistent, so you can still pick them out even as the shapes are distorted.

    In retrospect, I wish I adhered less to colour accuracy—my favourites are the ones where the colours are bright and saturated. Perhaps it’s not realistic in a photo, but as a painting I like it a great deal more.

    Next year, I think I’ll take it easy on how many days I participate in. Towards the end, I started to feel quite tired; as a result, I think my last week of paintings were the least interesting. The consistency was great though—I haven’t drawn much since then, and I really need to get back to it.

    These are all collected in my sketchbook collection; most have some notes attached and time spent; Procreate paintings include a timelapse.

    Reading

    • I finally read 17776 by Jon Bois, which was just an incredible reading experience.
    • I’ve been in a sort of Weird House Fiction zone, which began with House of Leaves earlier this year but has now continued to Uketsu’s Strange Houses and Strange Buildings, the House Murder Series by Yukito Ayatsuji, and Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.

    Music

    I saw The Last Dinner Party live and they were incredible!! My favourites were Big Dog and This is the Killer Speaking, but really, it was all fantastic.

    A distant, poor quality concert photo of a five-piece band on stage against a vivid red and purple backdrop.
    apologies for bad photo

    Games

    Destiny 2

    Destiny 2, a game that consumed a not-insignificant amount of my time and energy over the past five years, announced that it is ending its live service updates. Maybe at some point in the future I’ll write a five thousand word blog post about it.

    In their own words:

    “This week in Destiny, we launched Monument of Triumph, our last live service update for the best game ever made, aka Destiny 2.”

    They’re right. It’s the best.

    Marathon

    I’m playing Marathon again, mostly very badly, but I’m trying to get over my gear fear.

    Movies

    I haven’t been watching much lately, much less anything new. Highlights include Tekkonkinkreet (beautiful; also great score!) and rewatching Hackers (HACK THE PLANET!!!); today I’m going to see Disclosure Day.

    Other

    I’m looking forward to: Hadestown proshot in July (“looking forward to” is an understatement); Fields of Mistria in August; CONTROL Resonant in September (also: this song is a banger); and of course, spending time with Destiny 2.

    Cat

    Also, I adopted a cat. Her name is Sophie. She is the cutest cat in the world.

    Sophie, a tabby cat, peeks out from behind my computer monitor, staring off into the distance. My desk is otherwise crowded with pens, my PC, and laptop.
    Sophie lounging in her cat tree, with one front paw stretched out to bop my ereader that I'm holding out, where I'm reading 'The Secret History'.
    My desk at night, where Sophie sits on a cushion on the side. Everything is mostly in shadow, lit only by a warm lamp; Sophie forms a loaf shape.