The first page of my second book, in which I explore the look of camera shake from a film photo of Fia and I.

I’ve always found this angle of the face particularly difficult to draw, and you may notice I come back to it often. On the right side, a beautiful cat, held up in air jail. Small stamps across both pages.

Drawing from a very cute film photo of a drunken Wolf brushing his teeth in the bathtub in our house in Lincoln. Also a hand, for some reason.

There is an image that will be here later, but I have to go back and censor some personal information out of it first.

Sketches for a future valentine for Wolf. It turned out pretty cute.

More sketches for that valentine, and a painting of a coworker from the coffee shop that I worked at.

Noodlings about an idea I had for a valentine where it looks like a sexy pinup but actually it’s body horror. Maybe I’ll make it a real thing one day.

I don’t entirely know what’s going on here - chaos, mostly, I suppose.

Sketches of me and a friend.

A self portrait and a pikachu and mostly some thinking about cast shadows

Wasting away at the coffee shop, and maybe something about that old “Pondering my Orb” meme? I don’t really remember.

Will Toledo, of Car Seat Headrest fame. On the right side, a Wolf, and a sketch of my manager at the coffee shop.

Patterned paper pasting, and a drawing of my buddy Caleb who, notably, is NOT Jesus, even if he had long hair and a beard at that time.

More thoughts on layer+camera shake, plus a bonus discarded proof of Karen’s that I pasted in.

Silhouettes and a masked-up friend of mine

A wolf sketch and a Me sketch that I didn’t like, pasted over, and still didn’t like.

Charlie day from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia during the Pepe Sylvia bit, drawn from memory (which I think really captures the energy of the whole bit quite well ).

Sketches of some folks from the UNL math PhD program.

cartoon doodles of wolf and friends.

Dogs!!!

On the left are some garments from a video of some very stylish people dancing to the Little Simz song “Gorilla”. On the right are some drawings I made after learning that they make muzzles for flat-faced dogs that make them look like hannibal lecter. Delightful

Moody gouache paintings of film photos of good friends.

More moody gouache paintings of film photos, plus a Mounted Clown head that I saw at a bar in Chicago, and a wacky waving inflatable tube man!

Thoughts on a teeth sweater, and the beginnings of a gouache painting of Brian brushing his teeth in a loft in Portland.

This spread is one of my favorites. On the right, you have me succumbing to anxiety about admissions to grad school (even though I only applied to one school and told myself it was a practice year). On the right, the day after, I received my acceptance letter to SAIC.

On the left, some marker drawings of Karen and some pop-up paper houses that we made for a community art project. On the right, some thinking about a Food Zine, attempting to capture what my fellow SE Asian friends and I refer to as “The Cut Fruit Paradigm of Asian Loving.” This alludes to the phenomenon of asian parents not being so touchy-feely, but showing their love to their children through food. I have fond memories of being a moody teenager, at odds with my mother as teenagers are wont to be, but feeling the love nonetheless through a bowl of cut mango cubes.

Cover designs for the aforementioned food zine on the left.

On the right, a sketch I made at work while experiencing debilitating abdominal pain, so intense I could barely stand. My whole household was out of town for their spring break at the time, so I had to drive myself to the hospital. I actually refused to go to the ER at first because I didn’t think it was that serious, but when an urgent care center finally told me to get checked out, I went and found out that my appendix was about to burst and I had to have immediate emergency surgery. It was a rather scary experience, all on my own. I recall finding some comedy at my own mounting terror in contrast to the total calm of the ER nurses, who see much worse things every day. Fortunately, there were two friends in town who visited me at the hospital and drove me home (I’d thank them by name, but they are rather private people).

Doodles of my friend Ana, trying to replicate the look of my bathroom when we turned it into a darkroom to develop some photos we took with a homemade pinhole camera.

Notes after the appendectomy. It was extremely jarring for me to look at my own bruised and cut body post-surgery. I cried in the shower looking at it when I got home. Fortunately, I have some wonderful and loving friends who sent me gifts from afar while I recovered and waited for my housemates and Wolf to return home.

Painting my bruised post-surgery body got me interested in painting more bruises. So, boxers.

Thinking about moving back to the Big City. I miss the mountains when I’m in Chicago, but sometimes the tall buildings fill that void.

Monochrome painting of a dog from above (though it is a difficult image to parse), and the end page. TTFN.