One Page Comic - A Brush, A Pencil, A Life

This one-page comic is based on a story my mom shared about me as a baby, inspired by the Vietnamese first-birthday tradition where a child’s future is symbolized by the object they choose. I reached for both a pencil and a paintbrush, which later came to reflect my own quiet conflict between family expectations and my love for art. As the story moves into my adulthood, it shows the pressure to choose a more “practical” path and how hard it can be to follow creativity, with art becoming a space to express and heal.

One of my favorite childhood memories is my Vietnamese first birthday celebration, also known as the traditional “Thôi Nôi.” This tradition is a meaningful milestone in Vietnamese culture, celebrating a baby’s first year of life surrounded by family, blessings, and symbolic traditions for the future.

For this project, I turned that memory into a short script and a one-page comic that tells the story of my “Thôi Nôi” at the beginning of the comic. Below are my sketches before adding text.

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