#another crop for zine

[darwh]

#another crop for zine #kafka #hsr #honkai star rail #star rail #dw

[surreal-duck]

wanted to redraw their 7th anniversary homescreen before the next anni comes along o7

#duck scribbles #midori takamine #yuzuru fushimi #enstars #only now i noticed that their little accompanying logos r the mascot doodle in midori's autograph and a pen for yuzuru bc he likes drawing #thats fecking adorable what the heck #ensemble stars #midoyuzu #yuzumido #i dont play jp so i dont actually get to see it when playing myself but. it means everything to me #also you should totally zoom in to see random details i added. or not. up to you #this is actually a cropped ver the full thing is for a new phone wallpaper for myself whkjdsjkghkjdsg #i wouldve finished this yesterday if i didnt catch an absolutely horrid fever in the middle of my studio shift!!! #but rly this is the first time in a long while ive enjoyed working on smth so much its nice to be back into the swing of things #even if its a bit slow im!!! gonna like art again i hope #man my throat hurts and everythings cold and i think my head is getting warm again oops #feeling feverish on top of shark week Really sucks dang it #oh and another thing doing this has me considering making a mdyz zine sometime #just like. for myself maybe idk but it sounds like itd be somewhat fun #i already look through their tags on three different sites this one included on a regular basis only to see the same things most of the time #so why not!!!! new passion project why the hell not #highly doubt anyone would be particularly interested in that though LOL

[ghostleeness]

preview of my piece for @hexsidezine​! everyone did a great job on their stuff & all proceeds go to the Trevor Project. you can get it on gumroad here :^)

#all signs of willow lost in the crop war :^( #the owl house #toh #toh zine #owl house zine #hexside zine #happy finale!! #i have another toh thing ive been working on but i got busy & probably wont finish it till tomorrow <|:^(

[plenilune]

what a weird year it's been! this time last year I remember being so high on not wanting to die for the first time in years that I was ecstatic to greet 2023 and find out what I could do in it -- I don't feel that way this year, buffetted about by circumstance and my stupid human body and brain, but I don't feel defeated. I feel like I made a good first pass at a piece of work and now I'm going to take a hack at another draft. I made some good ground. not all the ground I was hoping to make, but a lot I wasn't expecting. I feel good about my ability to keep building a life and a self I can be more and more joyful to occupy.

I tried a lot of new things and some of them didn't work but most of them did. I said yes to a lot of weird shit. I had so many experiences this year. I'm glad I spent a night dancing and smoking on the fire escape outside a masonic lodge and being absolutely drenched in rain. I'm glad Corey and I went on a gorgeous queer group ride with a bunch of other queer cyclists through the streets of our favourite parts of northern Kentucky and then bicycled back home together. I'm glad I had a not-quite-one-night stand and bused home as the sun rose golden and alive and lovely. I'm glad I re-learned the importance of dancing at clubs until I can barely move. I'm glad I saw Oldboy in the cinema and was so adrenalised that I jumped up and down on the sidewalk and screamed waiting for my bus home. I started painting back patches and sewing things onto my clothing and making jewellery and collaging and cropping all my tshirts and sweaters.

I started writing again .god, I started writing again.

and I broke my phone, my glasses, and my computer and struggled financially and took a nightmarish disaster trip to Philadelphia for my grandmother's funeral and I lost access to meds for reasons that were completely my own fault and thus sunk into a mire of depression and fatigue for several months that could have been completely avoided. I struggled to connect to people and struggled to feed myself and been a goddamn wreck. I didn't really accomplish most of the things I thought I was going to, that I started with eagerness and energy at the beginning of the year.

but hell. I built some shit. now I can keep building on top of it. I feel like a completely different person sometimes now, with different possibilities. I fucked up and lost and careened into walls of bad luck over and over this year but I feel better for and about it than I have in a long time. okay, that's new muscles. okay okay okay. new page, new draft, we can go again.

anyway. this year I want to push forward more deliberately on some of the stuff I found out I could do this year -- obviously I am continuing to work on my goddamn space heist book, but also specifically pursue block printing, drag/burlesque, bass, and making zines in 2024 instead of just experimenting with them. bicycle more, cook more, invest in people more, Not Go Off My Meds At Any Point, play more video games, watch more films. (I watched over sixty this year! after barely watching films for so long I didn't know what my own taste was any more, and feeling the shame and confusion of having once been a kid who wanted to go to film school but didn't know what movies they liked any more.)

anyway. here's to all of you who have kept me alive and interested in the world this year. my beloved partner is making arriabbiata and playing jazz in the next room. I have to work first thing tomorrow but tonight I'm going to finish the first season of Better Call Saul and poke at my novel and the day after tomorrow I'm going to have tea and listen to music and sew patches onto my jacket and best flannel. I'm going to keep finding new things to be alive for. I'm going to create a self I want to live inside. I'm excited to know what things are going to happen to me in 2024. I'm excited to learn about new ways to feel joy.

goodnight, 2023. you were a mess and I loved you more often than I didn't.

#the diary #the new year

[blueskittlesart]

My zine arrived!!! The quality is so good it’s so awesome to be able to hold all these comics!!

I took a art book publishing class last semester so I’m inclined to ask how you chose the paper weight / texture you did and if you have any advice when it comes to printing art?

Love all your work!

hi im so glad it arrived safely!

The printer I used is called mixam, which i found because it was the same printer used for a few other collaborative zine projects i've been on. Their process for printing is really user-friendly and customizable so I liked them a lot!

As for how I chose paper weight and texture, i had a general idea of what I wanted and what was going to work best for what I was printing--I needed paper that was heavy enough that large blocks of black wouldn't show through from page to page, for example, while also not making the book too thick to be staple-bound, and for the cover I knew I wanted a matte finish because colorful digital art generally prints and displays better on matte paper than glossy. After that it was a matter of picking options that fit those constraints without getting too expensive to print, which wasn't hard since the interior printing was all black-and-white which brought down the cost significantly. I did order a prototype to make sure that my choices worked well physically, and thankfully I was happy with the quality I got and didn't need to order another prototype with different options, but that's what I planned to do if I needed to make any changes ahead of ordering the big batch.

As for general advice about printing art, I've always used the highest possible resolution files any given program can handle, and if I know I plan on printing something I work in CMYK. I've found that if a colored piece is heavy on blacks or very dark colors it doesn't print well, which is part of why I kept the cover of the zine so light. If i DO need to print something that's really dark, I usually bump the contrast considerably higher with the assumption that it will print darker than it looks on my screen. (I didn't originally plan on printing the interior comics in the zine, so some of the artwork had to be cropped or expanded to fit the print dimensions, but luckily they were black and white already so no color problems occurred in the printing process lol)

#prototypes were like decently expensive. my first one was around $30 altogether #bc ordering just one is more expensive per print than ordering a big batch #but given the insane amount of money i made in sales after the fact. that cost means almost nothing now. LMAO #asks

[psyga315]

A breakdown of an analysis of female portrayal in media

Originally the entire post was going to be a takedown of the post, but to iamafanofcartoon's credit, a lot of the points they make are valid. However, given their bias towards RWBY, some double standards come up ironically as they bring up double standards.

"A lot of people are incapable of viewing female characters as anything other than an innocent saint or a portrait of pure evil. Arguably the best characters are morally ambiguous ones who live in the gray area between good and evil, but women are much less often afforded that distinction than their male counterparts."

This is the biggest piece of irony ever when you remember how they treat Ironwood, someone who has moral ambiguity (at least in Volume 7) or even how they regard Ruby lying to Ironwood as something that isn't something morally ambiguous, but rather 100% guaranteed the right thing to do.

"I’m been having a huge problem connecting to media. The only women around are very young or very old and their main defining feature is usually motherhood."

They say as the protagonists of RWBY are women who are very young.

"A lot of the time if there is a military high ranking female character or just female leader that is masculine or butch she will be the villain to be defeated by the traditionally feminine or at least more feminine heroine/love interest of the hero."

Oh, military being evil is just a trope in of itself. You should be familiar with it because you like to bring up a certain someone who fits that trope to a T over and over:

Wonder why he gets shit.

I'm going to pause and heavily commend I Am A Fan for bringing up the overuse of the term Mary Sue and how it's now used as a phrase to shut down any female protagonist who just happens to be just a little too much in the screen time, especially given its ironic origin being that it was to parody the "I get into Starfleet, befriend literally everyone, and then tragically die" trope that cropped up in several Star Trek zines.

There's a lot of debate with Rey and the sequels, but we'll leave that for another day. All I will say though is that holy shit, the defense for Rey here is top notch, especially that part where they compare Rey's handling of weapons to Luke's handling of weapons.

A lot of the post starting from when they criticize the overuse of Mary Sue is actually a really solid read and I recommend you giving it a look, even if you don't agree with what they say.

That said, it comes crashing down over to here:

"You heard of The Bechdel test: Two women have to talk about something other than a man. There is no time window."

Ignoring the fact that the Bachdel test isn't meant to be taken seriously (something that the linked page literally points out), RWBY failed this test numerous times.

Ruby: (putting the pamphlet away) Yeah! Great idea, sis! (holding out her hand as she clears her throat) Hello, Weiss! I'm Ruby! Wanna hang out? We can go shopping for school supplies! Weiss: (seemingly enthusiastic) Yeah! And we can paint our nails and try on clothes and talk about cute boys, like tall, blond, and scraggly over there!

That's just the straight up example. "But Psyga, she was being sarcastic!". Okay. Well, the condition is that they have to be talking about a man and not specifically someone they're dating, so pick your poison with these two Bumblebee exchanges. One has them talking about two men!!!

Blake: I had someone very dear to me change. [...] you're not him. And you've never done anything like this before. So... I want to trust you. I will trust you. But first, I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me that he attacked you. I need you to promise me that you regret having to do what you did. Yang: (wipes her eyes of tears, then says as calmly as possible) I saw him attack me, so I attacked back.

Yang: Do you… (loud exhale) Do you think we should've told Ironwood about Salem, before he put so much on the line for Amity? Blake: Sounds like you do. Yang: (sighs) I trust Ruby, but I think he deserves to know what he's stepping into. We all did.

But you wanna know the most batshit insane part? Stretch the definition, and you can have RWBY fail this test first try.

Glynda: I hope that you realize that your actions tonight will not be taken lightly, young lady. You put yourself and others in great danger. Ruby: [Roman and his gang] started it! Glynda: If it were up to me, you'd be sent home... With a pat on the back... (she notices Ruby's smile) ...And a slap on the wrist. (she demonstrates with her riding crop, which Ruby barely avoids as she gives out an "Eeek!) But... [Ozpin] would like to meet you.

Like, I would bring up that Rick and Morty pointed out how it's not meant to be taken seriously, but then I remembered it's called Rick and Morty and not Rikki and Morticia, so it might not even be in I Am A Fan's radar.

"Go watch RWBY or Legend of Korra. Both involve a deconstruction of tropes. Both involve women standing up against an authority that demands respect based on being authority, not based on respect. Both shut down the white male savior trope so hard, that men and women who love the patriarchy despise both shows."

What they don't tell you is that the "standing up against authority" bit in RWBY only lasts for two Volumes and it ends up making the main character's deep-rooted depression outright suicidal because their actions in doing so had lasting consequences to their psyche. Not to mention that up until Volume 6, they had been following the instructions of authority.

A straight white male one at that who in Volume 4 went into the body of a person of color and has to possess him in order to continue giving instructions. And that's when the girls start to question his authority and even yell at him. If that's not fucking yikes, I don't know what is.

Korra's standing against authority is more "let the bad guys depose the authority and then we'll clean up the mess" but that's neither here nor there.

Also, I don't think adding a fe in front of male counts as shutting down the white male savior trope.

But of course, anything that Team RWBY or Korra does is immediately held to a double standard and ripped into for anything that they do NOT because they’re flawed or because of writing decisions. Its because they’re LGBT women that they’re held under a microscope.

No, it's because people explored the long-standing consequences of their actions and what it means for upending society as a whole. I haven't been in the Legend of Korra discourse but I definitely know the discourse of RWBY to know that them being LGBT has nothing to do with them getting criticized.

In fact, two of the four girls aren't even LGBT in the first place and the other two are B but you keep denying that and call them L.

Or have you noticed that every fixit fanfic for both series involves defending the Patriarchy while supporting toxic masculinity and trying to revive the White Male Savior trope that both shows have tried so hard to bury six feet under?

Have you noticed that RWBY involves four girls defending the patriarchy while supporting toxic masculinity and trying to revive the White Male Savior trope that it ironically tried to bury six feet under?

Because after Volume 3, the plot is about them going from Kingdom to Kingdom and protecting the Academies, which the last King of Vale had essentially turned into castles to house powerful relics.

When all four of these relics are gathered, they summon two brothers who will pass judgement onto mankind and are seen as, so far, one of the only ways to truly deal with the true threat of Salem, i.e. they are the white male saviors.

Despite being even more trigger happy and axe crazy than Volume 8!Ironwood.

And just to show just how much of a tangent I Am A Fan's post is... That's the very last paragraph. Do you see why I call them FNDM-GPT?

EDIT: This motherfucker reposted this from March! https://iamafanofcartoons.tumblr.com/post/711784852348878848/we-need-to-address-how-media-and-media-critics

#rwde #rwby

[alonetogether]

platonic soulmate mfs above ⬆️🙄

crop of a larger piece for my fob seasons zine page which you can still preorder for another 15 days btw ;)

#patrick stump #pete wentz #fob #fall out boy #fob8 #petetrick #.we are allowed to show Extremely cropped sneak peeks of our pages now hehe #my art

[sunfloralchaos]

No new art but instead another crop from one of my Infernal Heritage pieces (@losthavenguild )

Find us live on Kickstarter !

#dnd #dnd art #tiefling #pathfinder #infernal heritage zine #jay and art #bg3 #d&d #zine

[peonypaint]

im very excited to be able to show a preview of my piece for the upcoming legacy of tackle- a kamen rider ladies focus zine!! preorders are open now and i couldnt be happier with a zine, all of the artists and writers are very talented and have put together some amazing work! being able to draw a page for this zine was wonderful.

you can preorder the zine at legacyoftackle.bigcartel.com !!!

[ ID: a zine preview of a digital drawing of hana and naomi from kamen rider deno. the preview window is teal, with a circle at the bottom left corner which shows a drawing done by a different artist of tackle with her hands on her hips. there is text at the top of the preview which reads "legacy of tackle preview" in a red and white font. inside the box is a cropped version of a larger zine art piece, showing naomi and hana looking at one another and smiling. /END ID]

#legacy of tackle zine #zine work #kamen rider deno

[hypnag0g]

Do you have examples of your web/graphic design-ish art on hand? I've caught glimpses and it's some REALLY excellent stuff

howdy! thank you so much for this wonderful ask, i very rarely get the chance to talk about my web/graphic design stuff, so seize any chance i can get! you'll have to forgive me for how scattered this everything is, my graphic design stuff normally ends up as a smaller part of illustrations, so a lot of it is gonna be cropped, haha.

my hypnagog header is probably the thing i'm most proud of, it was the first custom font i ever made that felt like i captured what i saw in my head. kind of a clunky way to put it but before this i'd change my header logo and general "branding" like once every three months, yet this one has stuck around for like 2ish years!! here it is in my classic colorway and my new green/orange one.

here are a couple of my older logos for a bunch of random projects (a comic about evil horses, a defunct community project, a bunch of little glyphs for hypnagog before i settled on my current aesthetic, and one for story about evil clones)

here are three posters i did for a couple of classes, they're more illustrative than graphic design but there's still elements that feel close enough to gd for me to post lol (a pitch poster for ANOTHER comic i was working on, an editorial piece about the recent HPAI surge, and a quick zine about my experiences with internet horror)

and FINALLY. here's my web design stuff. full disclaimer, i learned how to code on neopets, and i've never been able to break free of it's pull, so p much everything i've ever done for web design has all been on neopets, or on clone sites that emulate it pre-2007.

i'd love to link you these two but they're unfortunately behind a login screen on my current petsim of choice, so i hope the screenshots will do! these two are pet lookups coded from the ground up to look like social media profile pages (fun sidenote: Butch has a normal profile, Ransom is a silly hacker stereotype, and he had no choice but to "customize" his profile when faced with the insanely unsecured back-end of LUNET.)

aside from that, my other most recent web project was developing a really sleek character directory for my toyhou.se. i made all the graphics on this page and i'm super proud of it, haha.

oh i almost forgot. i also have a bunch of really dumb banners that my friends and i use in discord in tandem with a bot that posts them on command - most of them are intentionally designed to look bad, but some of em (especially the data "webba" banner) were made with a lot of care, haha.

i think i might be forgetting some things, but that's pretty much it! my next big project is building out my neocities - i'll definitely post about it when its finished because i wanna use it as a secondary posting location for all my stuff :o]

thank you again!!!!

#my art #artists on tumblr #askagog #graphic design and web design are like. the only form of art that i do that feels like a hobby to me #everything else is super intense work stuff #but building a silly little webpage? always fun. always exciting #i hope tumblr doesn't eat the quality on these

[lycomorpha]

Eivor’s herbarium P2: white clover (completed)

'Forage for cattle & beloved by bees - do only they & I notice it’s fragrance? For so humble a plant it’s potent perfume is a marvel. I took some to Randvi & we shared its sweet scent...’

Finally completed the next page in Eivor’s Herbarium - white clover. (Cover page is here, P1 on on the Ravensthorpe marker oak is here)

I wanted the text to reference Randvi and kinda trail off without saying too much... This is one of the first plants Eivor might encounter on arrival in Ravensthorpe, after all. It’s pretty much everywhere in and around the longhouse, settlement, riverbanks, etc.

I was extremely slow to draw the writing on this. After a long gap without working on this, and current chronic pain problems affecting my hands... I was kiiinda irrationally terrified about fucking it up. The writing isn’t even twiddly or exciting - Eivor is a busy vikingr & a botanical hobby is one thing, calligraphy is another. Anyway it’s done. Whew!

Now... Which plant do I do for the next page - the journey to Grantebridge? I have Silver Birch ready to go, maybe that?

Recap: White clover (Trifolium repens)

This small plant is easy to overlook. It has a really amazing scent, but not many ppl notice it, since it’s very close to the ground. There’s a species of moth - the marbled clover - that feeds on it, which I’ve drawn for something else I’m making. A zine about moths of Ravensthorpe - species that Randvi might see drawn to the light while she’s up late working at the alliance table.

This clover is grown as a forage crop for grazing animals, with a long history of agricultural cultivation. It’s super common in pretty much any grassy area here in the UK…

…including in my back yard like this plant.

The individual flowers within each flower head look similar to pea flowers - because it’s a legume (same family as beans and peas.) Probably the only thing I remember about them from biology class is that legumes fix nitrogen via nodules on their roots that contain symbiotic bacteria. Because they add nitrogen to the soil, they reduce the need for fertiliser and improve grazing pastures. So that’s why they’ve historically been an essential crop.

As well as around the settlement of Ravensthorpe, clover is also seen in-game in grassy areas too. It seems to have a fairly realistic distribution! Below it’s mixed in with other wildflowers in meadows…

…and here it’s scattered around this weird deer-skeleton-bees-nest-honeycomb… thing? (I am as confused as the person in the pic tbh.)

You can also see some white clover on the cover page for Eivor’s herbarium below.

The easiest place to find it in game is right outside the Ravensthorpe longhouse.

#Assassin's Creed #assassins creed valhalla #video game botany #VideoGameBotany #Eivor's herbarium #eivors herbarium #ACValhalla #AC Valhalla #Eivor #eivor varinsdóttir #eivor varinsdottir #eivor wolfkissed #botany #plants #botanical art #pressed flowers #pressed leaves #herbarium #book herbarium

[reforgedzine]

illogicalkat is another writer on the WinterIron zine. Look at this new preview:

Tony is still running through the list of reasons no one in their right mind would visit when a flash of silver crosses his vision, then sits down beside him.

“Hey, Tony.”

Bucky looks good. Better than Tony, that’s for sure; although, the bar there might be unusually low. His hair is loose but neatly combed, his face clean-shaven, and his leather jacket is cropped at the left shoulder, leaving his metal arm on full display. He looks like Bucky, like the version Tony imagines whenever he thinks of his boyfriend. Not the mission-weary, worn-down soldier from last winter.

“Hi, Bucky. I wasn’t expecting…well, anyone,” Tony confides, setting his notebook and pen on the table.

SHOP NOW

#winteriron #tonybucky #buckytony #bucky x tony #zine #fanzine #marvel fanzine #fanfic #charity fanzine #tony stark #bucky barnes

[anaquariusfox]

Hi. I think I read an ask you answered last month and you said your steddie zine was going to be physical, but on your storenvy there is only pre order for the digital. I was wondering if you had changed your mind and it'll only be a pdf ?

I- haha /cries

I wanted to do physical only, gods. Did it ever. But after the pain staking time it takes to trim and adjust artwork for a printing format, the first attempt to get it to print, the files where the wrong type, when the site said any type was fine. So I said, okay fine, I’ll do pdf. So I do that, and then I load them in again, and not only could I not edit them to my liking (crop and such) all the edits I made to the files to make sure what I wanted was in the correct trim limits, it was all fucked.

It was then, in that very moment, I shut my computer slowly, cried, and decided it’s going to be digital only. Not only it being easier for me and my mental health lol, but it’s less time I need to spend getting it printed, shipped to me, then shipped out. I work a full time job and have literally no spare time to do anything outside of my job and simply life pleasures that keep me going. In the end, I just don’t have the time or mental strength to do physical zines at this time.

I want to do more zines in the future! But they will all be digital. I also move around A LOT and I don’t want to move around left over zines from state to state or to another country.

#ask

[unfortunatelycake]

Tagged by @mostlikelytofangirl ! Thank you!

Rules: Share the first line of ten of your most recent fanfics and then tag ten people. Don't have ten? Not to worry, just share what you have.

1. "There were times that He Xuan really hated Hua Cheng. Tonight was no an exception." (From How to Fall Hook, Line & Sinker in 5 Easy Steps, a beefleaf modern AU in which He Xuan meets Shi Qingxuan at a speed dating event and decides to have a little fun with them. And it totally, absolutely, 100% Does Not Mean Anything.) 2. "Feng Xin never thought his life would be like this." (From Song of Secret Dreams, a fengqing modern AU with dad!FX and bandman!MQ)

3. "It's your birthday. You shouldn't have to spend it alone." (From Just Another Date on the Calendar, a ZiNing modern AU in which Wen Ning seeks out Ouyang Zizhen's help in finding a boyfriend)

4. "Mu Qing only bought the hoodie as a joke." (From A Teasing Gift, a fengqing modern AU in which MQ discovers he has a thing for seeing Feng Xin in cropped tees)

5. "Things were different, after the events at Mount Tonglu." (From Keep Us a Secret, a canon-divergent fengqing fic where they try to sneak around and hide their new relationship)

6. "Speed dating was stupid." (From How to Get a Boyfriend in 3 Minutes, a fengqing modern AU where they meet at speed dating and clear up some old misunderstandings. Among other things ;) In case you think I write too many speed dating fics, I've written three, and they're all sidefics to each other lmao)

7. "As Mumen Rider narrated the story, he lifted his hands to draw the shape of a house in the air." (From The Big, Not-So-Bad Wolf at Christmas, a post-Monster Association arc festive mumarou fic. This is actually the second line because the first line is a quote from The Three Little Pigs, so doesn't count!)

8. "Nie Huaisang's body was cold. His fingers were so chilled from his mad dash from the Stone Castles to Lotus Pier that they felt frozen around the handle of his fan, and Jiang Cheng's supportive arm around his shoulders was so hot that it burned through his robes." (From Crushed Stone, Steadfast Night, a sangcheng sidefic to Broken Jade, Faded Blooms, dealing with NHS's grief over losing NMJ & feeling unfulfilled by his attempts at gaining vengeance on JGY.)

9. "It had been a long week." (From Foolish Pretenders, a fengqing modern fake dating AU. Y'all know they're not really faking though.)

10. "Lan Xichen couldn't remember what it was to be happy." (From Broken Jade, Faded Blooms, a xiyao post-canon fix it featuring demonic cultivation, atonement, self-reflection, romance, and JGY's unfortunate relationship with stairs (but not those ones))

Tagging: @snarkivistfic @km-birdie @butterfliesandresistance @batneko @anonymousedward @criscura @rayadraws & YOU! (If you so wish to do it, no pressure if not!)

#someone tagged me in the thing #thank you for tagging me in the thing #kakera writes stuff

[upthewitchypunx]

Adding new items to the catalog is my least favorite task. It requires taking photos, cropping and sizing photos, naming, saving, uploading images, and filling info out in our admin in 6 different tabs. I hope people appreciate that I take photos of the insides of books and zines and not just the covers.

So, I'll have you know that I'm in the middle of adding 8 new items to the catalog all from Hellebore zine, yet another folk horror zine from the UK.

I'm taking a break even though I need to get them all in the catalog so I can take a shower and get to the post office by 4.

Okay, back to work.

#ate the rest of the chili with juanitas chips #Juanitas chips are the best chips in the world #would die for Juanita!

[mtljr]

My second iteration of “Sentinels” came about somewhat unexpectedly. My folks moved to Mexico a while back, Nuevo Nayarit as it’s called now specifically, long story. Anyway we went for a visit and I brought my point-and-shoot and 3 rolls. Having been pretty fixated on trees from years past (the first Sentinels in Iowa from 2017-20), and a new crop I’ve been shooting near home, I pretty much stuck to it.

I’ve always loved taking pictures from the car going way back, but never with a specific subject, and most of what I have are non-specific blurs, too distant, too reflexive, or so I thought. Basically I had no expectations, which is not to say I wasn’t paying attention or trying, I just slipped into some kind of flow and presence. When I saw the negatives I felt that same energy could be extended by the results, and having not made a book in quite awhile I just immediately pivoted over into production mode.

This is one of those not-a-zine-but-kinda books. Laser printed and half-letter sized. Sewn and bound with care, a double-pamphlet with spine guards and cover weighted front and back covers in various combinations of 4 colored papers (3 per book). I wasn’t asking “why.” I spent 2 years doing that and it got me precisely nowhere. I made 30, and though I may eventually print these images in the darkroom I don’t expect to come back to these 18 photographs outside of the way they’re organized here. If anything, it’ll push me to make more of these small efforts going forward, which is a W. I think you should do it, too. Do it with something close but small. Then do another. It’s already paid for itself through sales and enough for the next (that’s not a guarantee).

It’s been a long time since I used this account, or tumblr at all for years. But looking for something else now, and thought I’d give this another go. I won’t dump like this all the time, but I know I would rather do it here than in between being hypnotized by unsolicited woodworking videos or whatever else I get served up because they know my eyeball movements and pause durations. Anyway, hello again!

#film #trees #zines #point and shoot #yashica #nayarit #photography #photobook #self publishing #photo zine #handmade