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A Beginning: 100 Days of Banners

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A Gentle Challenge 2025 was a year of many cat drawings, which fulfilled my biggest goal set in December 2024. By November I was addicted to drawing from photographs, which is not something I have ever tended toward. My drawings were split between several sketchbooks, so it would be hard for me to prove this as fact, but I am almost certain that I drew a cat (or other floofy baby) a day for 30 days continuously. The zine fest came up in November so I got distracted preparing for that, and then in December I was devoted to Holiday gift drawings and preparing for the Meetup at the Music and Gaming Festival I hosted at the beginning of January. So I got side tracked, that's life! Drawing Consistently and Posting to Social Media For years I drew everyday, and have occasionally had a hiatus here or there - sometimes lasting over a month. Typically my minimum daily art is a cartoon self portrait as that counts as a journal entry in my book. To draw cats everyday I could was a fun goal la...
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CAT NiP Zine (formerly Journaling for Spoonies)

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  A layout of one side of the mini zine version of Cat Nip Vol 1 Visitors to this blog may remember my previous zine in progress was Art and Journaling for Spoonies. Folks who fit under the spoonies label don't universally understand its meaning (a metaphor for limited energy). And so is born CAT NiP: Playful Encouragement for the Sleepy Artist! Below is a video flip through of the full sized zine, and below that I will put the alt text for the zine.  I hope you find some inspiration here, and that you might download the zine for yourself from the zine page of this website:  https://birdbo.blogspot.com/p/zines.html Alt text: Cover: CAT NiP volume 1, Playful Encouragement for the Sleepy Artist Interior pages are illustrated by goofy line drawings of cats in pink, and purple. Each page of your journal is an opportunity to practice courageous curiosity. Treat yourself as you would treat a young child who is just learning to draw or write. If you miss days of art making due t...
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Refining my drawing style in 2025

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  In December and January this past Winter, I drew pet portraits for my family. The drawings came to life in Procreate (ipad) as I layered colors and line work on top of photos given to me by relatives. The drawings had my sense of color, my interpretation of line, light and shadow. But they were tight, I was scared to use my loose punk art style on these presents. I wanted them to like the drawings, for them to look like they were done by a competent adult artist. My style in truth is loose as hell and sometimes sloppy. I love to color outside of the lines and have white outlines between colors and ink. I love minimalism and a la prima paintings. The energy of the moment, wabi sabi. So when I realized I felt this way, that I had played so conservatively with my drawings that it wasn't even "my style", I decided to find my style. I knew it when it happened but I couldn't call it up on demand. I wanted to be able to make a career out of my true hand work. My loose line...
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Art Journaling Inspo for Spoonies (who love cats) zine

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Art Journaling Inspo for Spoonies (who love cats) is a zine that aims to give journaling and art inspiration to folks with limited energy - who also may love cats! The black and white version of the zine is below, available for download. Link to Download directly: https://drive.google.com/file/d/150O6w1LIhWopCqaWlhmgm9QtpjaOltMM/view?usp=sharing See my complete Zine PDF Collection in my Ko-Fi shop (free +): https://ko-fi.com/birdbo/shop Author's note:  I still plan to add color as per my previous post, but this version looks so cool and also functions as a coloring book. It is also easier to print while using less ink. I'm looking forward to learning about how to create my color layers properly for Risoprinting in case I can make that happen!  Scroll below the PDF viewer for the alt text. Alt Text: (All pages feature quirky black ink drawings of my cats.) Front Cover: Art Journaling Inspiration for Spoonies (who love cats) Each new page of your journal is an opportunity to p...
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Express Your Weirdest Self

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Wandering through Space to find home again. Stuck in Your Art? When it comes to a blank notebook, why do we run from our personal reality and weirdest truths in pursuit of something “correct”? What if your weird thoughts are the best ones to put on the page? My weird is zoomed out concepts like “Big History” and “Deep Reality” (I only made up one of these two phrases). I am an animist at the same time, believing that the further into Science and conscious experiences we wander, the more absurd reality shows itself to be and the more alive all Existence seems.  In exploration of these concepts, I have gleaned an ability to experience different perspectives, what I call “zoomed in” and “zoomed out”. I believe the ability to wander between these points of view can be an asset in your attempts to discover something new to express in your art, something honest and true. Zooming in and out You’ve awed at the spectacular photographs of our planet Earth, as seen from Space. You’ve seen pho...
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Risograph Marginalia and Marketing Dreams

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  'Medieval Manuscript Marginalia meets Risograph Splatter' This is 'Medieval Manuscript Marginalia meets Risograph Splatter,' a mock up that combines the inspirations for my next zine! Semi-transparent color shapes will be placed around the page to balance out the weight of clean text.  Each of the pages will be both a poster and a social media asset showcasing quirky design and awareness of typography and page layout design rules. I want to combine hand-drawn lines with vector shapes and clean font as a delightful showcase of the zine's inspirational creative guidance. (Zine text in last post.) Career development I'm hoping to use this zine as a portfolio piece for marketing, as I shift toward a career that allows me to use what I have learned in my attempts to create art businesses over the years. Every time I've come up with a business or book idea I have researched more about marketing and communication - including illustration and visual design, websit...
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Art Inspo for Spoonies Zine Development

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A proposed cover for the zine that fits the interior pages I'm aiming for. Below are the previous two dummy drafts that helped me pick out my words This current zine iteration has Bird and Cat talking to the viewer, but I want something completely different and more decorative than narrative! Here is the interior copy: Make Art Easy! It's OK! Your blank page is a safe place to coach yourself through those intrusive thoughts. Practice courageous curiosity. Try to use grace with yourself. "Beginner's Mind" -- treat yourself as you would treat a child who is just learning to draw or write. Be gentle and patient. Consider the value of the making process itself rather than only counting a finished project as "Art." Consider blending writing and drawing for new modes of expression.  Lined or dotted paper can help reduce fears of preciousness or perfectionism. Blank paper covered in doodles might be the juice you need to brai...
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