Welcoming June!

May wrap-up, Formula 1 sketches, and feral screaming

Jun 04, 2023

Compared to April — which beat January for the title of Worst Month of the Year — May was a month of beginnings.

I’m slowly falling back into a steady routine of incorporating activities I enjoy in my every day life. Reading on the train, running on the weekends, drawing at night, I find gaps in my day to fill it with things I love. It makes the day-to-day more bearable and I really hope this routine sticks for the rest of the year.

May’s escapist routes:

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld: The funny, the is-this-suppose-to-be-funny? type of funny, and the sharp honesty all comes together in this masterpiece that is Romantic Comedy. I’m going to need everyone and their cats to read this book RIGHT. NOW. (Thank you to the talented Phoebs at
in the kitchen.
for the rec! She’s slowly turning me into a Curtis Sittenfeld fan and I’m okay with that!)

An accurate depiction of me after reading Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Notting Hill (1999) on Netflix: It should be illegal how long it took me to finally watch this movie. This was an entertaining and heartfelt film all the way through! William’s narration in the beginning will forever be iconic. Notting Hill is also my favorite bit of London.
Drive to Survive on Netflix: I kind of just dropped the series — and the sport overall — back in 2021 because it was a stressful time for me personally and there’s only so much my brain could take! But now I’m watching this series with regained interest!! The adrenaline rush each episode gives me is truly top tier. (No one asked, but I’m currently on Season 4 :p)

Drawing Update (?)

**NOTE: I do not know what I'm talking about and this section is just me rambling about how I feel about my two sketches.**

I’ve been trying to get back into drawing lately. I don’t really have a plan on how to go about it, but right now I’m learning to draw objects in motion. (Is this just me avoiding anatomy? Maybe. Maybe not.) So here are the two sketches I worked on this month:

I tried coloring this in while I was at work and that was a BAD call. I’m glad I took a photo of my sketch before lmao.

Here’s my quick sketch of this photo. While I was recovering from my wisdom teeth extraction, I moved the sketch over to Procreate. I definitely did not clean up the drawing; it’s still very messy. But I kind of liked how it turned out?

I was trying to add some motion via the short lines around certain areas and the red around the tires. Whether it accomplishes my goal is up for debate!

Next I used this photo as a reference. This time, I drew the car digitally from start to finish. The sketch is definitely cleaner than the previous one.

I’m still getting a hang of Procreate (and digital art in general), so I wanted to experiment with coloring. For this drawing specifically, I used the Moorilla brush which gives a more watercolor feel.

Again, I added lines to show movement.

And again, I was very indecisive with how many lines I should add for movement. Most times, it depends on the *feel* of the piece (if that makes any sense). So it really comes down to whether I want the car to appear fast but have the background somewhat visible (Option 1) or the car to appear LIGHTNING fast and have the background become nothing but a colorful blur (Option 2).

Overall, I liked how this drawing turned out! The brush is definitely nice to work with. However, I’m aiming for a different *vibe* with these F1 drawings so I’ll probably experiment with more brushes and styles etc moving forward.

In case you missed it:

I recently started posting my novella, Notes from a Time Traveling Daughter on here! It’s been a whirlwind of nerves and feral screaming. This novella is still a first(ish) draft; it still requires a lot of love to shape it into the story I have in mind. But like every project, it’s the novella of my heart.

Chapters are published every Sunday at 10am (PST). You can take a peek at the available chapters below:

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Introduction

Next Sunday, the first chapter of NOTES FROM A TIME TRAVELING DAUGHTER will go live (woohoo!). You may have already heard of this novella from my previous post. But if you haven’t, here is a little synopsis… In this coming-of-age dramedy, we follow a girl who descends from a lineage of time traveling women as she navigates the murky waters of girlhood an…

2 years ago · 5 likes · 8 comments · Thy Thi

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RULE #1: Don't Time Travel

From our great ancestor Bà Huynh Thuy Linh to our mothers then to ourselves, the Huynh girls possess the gift — or curse, depending on who you ask — of time travel. We don’t know how it started or when it will end, but we all know the rules. We are gifted on our 13th birthdays to our 23rd. We only get one opportunity to right our wrongs each year. We do…

2 years ago · 4 likes · 6 comments · Thy Thi

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RULE #2: Take Matters into Your Own Hands

Previously on Notes from a Time Traveling Daughter: Right after blowing out her birthday candles, Serena finds herself catapulted to Washington, 1998. There, she meets a younger version of her mom. RULE #2: Take matters into your own hands. Warnings aren’t enough. You need to make the changes yourself, and in the least invasive way possible. I know this …

2 years ago · 1 like · Thy Thi

All in all, I’m aiming to post monthly wrap-ups of all the art I’ve consumed and created moving forward. It’s like my planner, but more curated rather than a mess of all caps and pictures. Let me know if there’s something specific you’d like to see in these monthly posts!

And that’s it for May! The weather is nice, the sun doesn’t set until nine, and summer is finally returning to us in three weeks time. I hope June will be kind to us all.

Lots of love,

Thy Thi

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