Self-Publishing: Zines

Yesterday I had planned to do a Make Your Own Pizza physically-distant class with a 4-year-old and 6-year-old, but the heat wave put the kibosh on that. I had the pizza crusts, pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, mini pepperoni and other ingredients all ready, but then my niece said it was too brutal to be in Benicia and that she was taking the kids to the beach. Prior to the cancellation, I had prepped the kids with instructions or content with illustrations in zines. So fun! Paper folding and cutting and writing and drawing totally consumed my Sunday last week. I watched this YouTube as a refresher on how to fold and cut and construct--and you can watch other zine makers make some really cute magazine-like publications that are like scrapbooks depending how fancy you get with decorations.

And then I thought about one of my go-to orders at Papa Murphy's.

I just could not seem to stop, and I could tell with my drawing that I needed to stop.

Seriously, if you want to have a drawing and illustrating practice that is not as massively intimidating as an empty journal or sketchbook, then making zines is a great outlet for your creative expressions. The Bindery is wonderfully informational on what is a zine? And before I take up the art of binding my own books, I'd like to figure out first how to make compelling content.