Recent Zine - The Wintering of Seeds

After Louise Fletcher's courses (Find Your Joy and Find Your Voice), I found myself not doing art work.  I was still doing creative things...just not in the same ways, with the same regularity, or at the same volume I had been doing.  The creative things I did do included designing some books for printing, decorating our kitchen with alternating painted square canvasses as a backsplash, made some zines, and did some writing.  That change led me to thoughts about wintering...and if I was in a period of creative wintering.

What better way to explore a question than through making a zine!  This time it would be an exploration of how a plant prepares for and endures winter.  I came up with the name before doing the research.  So, seeds is really a misnomer.  But I like the philosophical bent of using that word in the title.  Seeds, as used in the title, mean kernels of possibility to me.  

To start the zine itself, I did the cover and designs on the pages.  I was experimenting with using a black Pentel Brush Pen that Austin Kleon recommends.  I'm not a natural with it, and it will take some more time to get used to, but it was a good start.  

Next was writing the pink words that represent the process a plant goes through for wintering.  Looking at it afterwards, the negative space was overpowering.  Something else was needed.  I found some writing on wintering (of plants, animals, and humans) and printed it as background with a light grey Stabilo pen.  It is also written in the opposite direction of the words in pink so the two wouldn't compete. 

 I like this zine, especially how the muted background printing is now a vital component.   The piece has meaning--describing as it does, physical wintering.  But beyond that, it also validates internal wintering that happens to us all like the tide--ebbing and flowing throughout our lives at different times.