The Quotidian Beauty of #1011Drawings

By day, Brooklyn-based Vi Luong is a creative director at MPOWERD, a solar power startup that aims to bring affordable, hand-held, solar-powered lights to a global market. By night, Luong is MISTER VI, the artist behind the  #1011Drawings hashtag, a personal journey through what will be a years’-long process of making 1,011 pen and ink drawings. A ten-year veteran at advertising agency McCann, Luong began his drawing sojourn as an attempt to reinvigorate his passion for drawing. Using Instagram—and his over 22,000 followers—as a crowdsourced cheerleading squad, the artist posts near daily updates of his progress, showcasing everything from exquisitely rendered building details, to Manhattan vistas and lifelike caricatures of everyday objects like half-empty whiskey bottles (and of course demitasse cups), all in a myriad of sizes, from teeny-tiny on up to wall-sized.

The Hotel de Ville by Vi Luong.

Says Luong, “Drawing, has always been a passion and something I felt guilty not putting much time towards. So about a year ago I decided to start this project on Instagram to force myself to pick up the pen and draw something daily…anything. I set out to do 100 drawings but realized that wouldn’t be much of a challenge. 1,000, at the time, seemed more reasonable. I settled on 1,011 drawings because that was the hashtag that wasn’t taken.” Having recently posted drawing number 541, 14 months later, Luong’s extra fine Micron pens are still chugging along.

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We sent Luong a few questions via email to discuss his project and delve into his process.

Luong working on a mural for Now Corporation’s offices.

The Creators Project: What inspires your drawings?

I was an Instagram junkie prior to this and like most people, would document my life through photos. Now I see the project as a way to document my life through drawings. It’s better than a photograph I suppose. I always remember when and where I was when I look back at old drawings. The result is I pay more attention to what’s around me. You train yourself to notice what the pattern is on a particular chair or that the floor is made up of hexagonal tiles, etc.—because it all gets put on paper. And I love drawing details. It’s how I’ve always mindlessly escaped. Perhaps that’s why I gravitate to drawing buildings and architecture. There’s no shortage of details in a brownstone or an old building. And you never run out of those things in New York City.  

A drawing titled “empire No. 5” by Luong of NYC as seen from So-Ho.

Tell us about your process.

It’s been about 14 months and I’m a little over halfway finished with this project. I carry a sketchbook with me everywhere now. I spend a lot of time in coffee shops with my sketchbook. Some drawings are a few minutes. Others can take hours. Depends how involved theY are or how much coffee I’ve had. It’s been a way to work through ideas for other drawings later.

A frontispiece illustration for a friend’s recently-published book.

A prototypical NYC walk up apartment.

A luxurious library interior by Vi Luong. (#475 from the #1011Drawings series)

A Victorian doll house by Vi Luong. (#408 from the #1011Drawings series)

Be sure to keep up with Luong’s journey toward 1011 drawings through his Instagram.

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