CAT NiP Zine (formerly Journaling for Spoonies)

 

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 to low energy or pain, please be kind to yourself.

It's okay, don't be afraid to have "bad" drawings or messy pages. Embrace the awkward parts of your art.

What if the Process of making is Art too? Your journal is evidence of the Art Process.

A sketchbook is inherently a series.  Explore possible variations and refine as you go.

It is totally valid to use your art as a way to "stim" (like with a fidget toy).

Try for bite-sized mini goals when your attention is scarce.

Use one whole art session to make a list of prompts.

Observational doodles are a fun way to ground with art. Draw a cartoon of what you see.

Be observant. "Notice what you Notice."

State the obvious in your journal. What is obvious now may not be later.

"Everything is interesting when you draw it." a quote by Koosje Koene.

"Happy Accidents" A quote by Bob Ross

That concludes the interior of the zine, what follows is the back cover:

What if art making could be fun and easy like when we were children? 
Please be as gentle with yourself as you can. 
There will always be a cycle of ease, struggles and plateaus. 
Let’s draw and write weird stuff!

by bird bohannon 2025.
visit www.birdbohannon.com for more zines + creativity coaching 
Smiley face.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Risograph Marginalia and Marketing Dreams

Image
  '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...
Read more

Express Your Weirdest Self

Image
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...
Read more

Inaugural Post

Image
    Everything starts somewhere, eh? So here we have a new blog to share my drawings and writing. Me and social media, well we have a sh*tty relationship with each other.  I need a place to express myself in a way that I can discover new patterns in my work and observe skill improvement and style development. I want you to see that too, because seeing one artist's journey is a great way to relate to your own process over time. As ever, I plan to share ways to make art easy - especially on a regular basis in a journal. Because doing so, both in the keeping of a journal and in the sharing how-to, has saved my life over and over again. I'm currently in year 5 of drawing comics, and I'd love to have a place to keep them as the ideas grow and change.   I'm also in year 5 of making zines, though I did make some attempts in college I only got serious about finishing them in 2020. I took a break when I was too busy with work, and the past year has been a trip getting back in...
Read more