sketchbook IV: đen đá không đường

January 01, 2025

sketchbook IV: đen đá không đường

đen đá không đường, black, iced, no sugar, is how you would order a coffee like a local in vietnam. without any tones it's den da khong duong, which is prettty cool because duong reminds me of my mom's last name, dương. today's art thing has nothing to do with the drink whatsoever, but I chose to name this collection that way because I like the black and white aesthetic. in real life, I like my coffee with condensed milk better (cà phê sữa đá). black coffee is too bitter.

I've been sketchnoting for quite a while now, starting with mike rhode's sketchnote handbook and workbook and keep going with austin kleon's trilogy. my style evolved through time, for reference you can check sketchbook I, II, III. when I was starting out in 2019, I would sketchnote daily on a single piece of paper by summarizing videos I've watched. it took me a while to figure out just what I like.

want to see more of my sketchnoting? check summaries of daily rituals and austin kleon trilogy that I did over the summer.

for sketchnoting, you need a notebook, a pen, and probably a correction pen that you'll use occasionally when you screw up. I find out the key to these is not using very expensive or aesthetic tools. a sharpie is better than a montblanc because I can drop it without worrying about it malfunctioning. a simple notebook is better than a heavily decorated one because I can make mistakes. and stick to one color. it naturally draws you to the idea more than the decorations that you have. I prefer this format more than diaries because it is briefer and feels like less of a commitment. the only thing I ask for now is a notebook that can withstand alcohol pens without the paper bleeding the hell out of it. also stick to pens with chisel tips to create cooler typography.

if there's a reason why you should try out keeping a notebook, that'd be because it brings back organic thinking. I came across this term from watching a man trying to replace his phone with a pocket notebook. lots of what we do today is done through the basis of a screen. screens are convenient for editing but it can be distracting and not very good for coming up with beta ideas. you also need to charge it and turn on wifi to save the work.

the process of organic thinking also reminds me of the coffee filter that we use to make black coffee. it drips down drop by drop, similar to how you have to filter through your thoughts to boil down only what is good and essential as you write.

the antagonist of this would be writing on the board, where things you create are less permanent. I enjoy both forms nonetheless. I enjoy copying out song lyrics or reciting things from memory as much as writing down my own thoughts. I guess I just like the feeling of writing, the complex and ballad between my brain and my hand, the posture you have while standing. for boards, I'm a die hard fan for the boards in my college's science building (park) and hagoromo chalks (mean feather armor in japanese). doesn't work too well with my all black outfits as it would always leave chalk stains, though.

as a polyglot, keeping a notebook can also helps you find out striking things about how you use different languages. english is as public as a language can get. I use it to share ideas. however, when I needs to find solace, I reserve to more private languages such as vietnamese and french. it is cool because you can have the text right there while still maintaining its privacy and intimacy. the iykyk experience.

I take great pride in my handwriting because people either say it's illegible or praise it all the time. I used to have shit handwriting in the past. I didn't really try to fix it, I just look at other people's handwriting long enough and it sort of internalized in me. my current handwriting is style cocktail of the handwritings of thắng from ngọt, trịnh công sơn, and thích nhất hạnh.

want good scans? fuck camscanner and its ads. use teams! go to chat with yourself, camera, document mode. pinch the edges and change filters as you need to.

the kind of reflections I have while waiting for crystals to dry in orgo vacuum filtration

the middle one for my calc 3 class because I hated it with burning passion
last one from something my french professor said

the epilogue of trần anh hùng's cyclo. I identify with this scene on many other levels. my favorite line remains the one that talks about how the cat is prettier after it's gone astray. it serves as a reminder that we find ourselves in journeys, no matter how bad it gets, like me getting scammed, for example. this paragraph carried me through the darkest of times.

her here doesn't necessarily have to have romantic connotations. I have a lot of women in my life that I'm grateful for and sometimes I think about them a lot, my mom, my grandma, my aunts, both at home and abroad.