Making Little Zines

 

Got this great little book from the Library before the shut down.
So I get to keep it until things reopen. Bonus for me. Lots of ideas:
construction of a zine & how to print an edition.
The hand drawn illustrations are fun.

Zines have been around for decades.  They are usually counter culture.
The 2 links above give some history.

I've been making little zines of my own & have several more ideas.
Lots of creative folks have been making them & posting on Instagram.
#quaranzine

 To see a video of the other pages of my first quaranzine during sheltering
in place go HERE to Instagram, the 3rd pane in.
 

Check out #quaranzine if you dare.
There are a ton of them. Folks getting creative which is great.

I especially like this.  From The Quaranzine.
Each page is this little guy screaming.

 My second zine...

Zine #3 above.


AK Rowling made a little book that can be considered a zine early on in her
Harry Potter explorations. Expected to sell at auction for as much as 150,000 pounds.
That's $186000.

There we have it. The end of this years A to Z Challenge.
Hope you had fun! I did. It's been a great distraction.

Delancy Place for Exploring Intersting Tid Bits

I have been a subscriber to Delanceyplace.com for a number of years.

They offer excerpts from books with historical, scientific, 

or just plain interesting topics. Click the Home button to sign up for their daily emails. 

I can usually tell within a moment or two if it's a reference I want to continue viewing.  

Many times there may be an art component & I find people I didn't know existed. 

Then I do some research. 

For instance, just 3 days ago Andy Warhol was featured in an excerpt 

from a book about the Music of 1965.

I'm a sucker for fun graphics. 

This was included in an article from a book about sleep. 

You can search the archives for any topic you may want to explore. 

It will not disappoint. Let me know if you take a look & what you think.

 

Alone Time

Alone Time

 

Here we go. The A to Z April challenge is upon us.

A is for Alone. This is not a bad thing. Who among you reading this gets enough alone time?  I find it a necessity. Any creative type needs their time alone to ponder, engage in trial & error, dive deep into whatever process moves them. Are you honest with yourself & those near to you about your precious time? I am an only child, so time alone was something I had plenty of growing up. Now I find I can get crabby if I don't build it into my routine.


Since I am trying to be honest about my feelings & what drives me in the challenge this year I'm sharing a "self portrait" that I did for fun.  Perhaps this will help you get to know me better.

 It's a block print I had laser cut from a drawing.

 

There are no wrinkles here, but rest assured they exist. 

 

Below are the parts I borrowed from to create the funky (a bit scary?) 

final product above I sometimes use on business cards.    

 

I look forward to sharing all sorts of random, alphabet driven thoughts, links, art, 

& ideas with you over the next 30 days.

Inspiration Everywhere

I cut up a couple catalogs for color, sketching, & shape inspiration. 

They are going in my journal.

May is an Artist Trading card month.  Pulled out some ideas & started to ply with shapes

The thought is to do mini fabric collages. Good way to use the scrap box. 

I find these mini pieces of art can generate lots of ideas to be used in other larger projects.

 

At a friends for an art play date I looked again at a sweet

 little mobile she has hanging in her kitchen.  

Inspiration everywhere indeed.

What place or activity generates the most inspiration for you?

 

There Are So Many Blues Here

 

All the different blues in the water here are astonishing. True ultra marine blue exists here. 

The wild life we see when we snorkel has been wonderful. 

A group of 4 eagle rays swam right under us today. The link is exactly what we saw. 

I have never been so close to them before to see their gorgeous markings so clearly. 

  

After a whale watching excursion to Salt Cay a couple days ago we walked the beach in search of treasures. 

This perfectly preserved crab was a great find. I see a sketch of him in my journal in the future. 

 

We did get in the water to snorkel with these two hump back whales! They didn't let us get too close, but what a thrill. What you see are them on their sides with a pectoral fin in the air. They hung out around us for about a 1/2 hour. We saw others as well.

 

When I saw this abandoned building on Salt Cay I thought Georgia O'Keeffe would have loved the Caribbean. 

The history of this small island is worth a look. Click the link above. 

We tend to stay on the go when we visit a new destination so time for my journal is limited. Did this sketch on our patio in some free moments. 

My skills are meager, but I have designs on doing more & improving.