Maybe you've never heard of a zine. The first time I heard about it was when I had to make one in art school, but before that I had no clue what it was. A zine, as defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, is "a small magazine that is produced cheaply by one person or a small group of people, and is about a subject they are interested in.". I will not be talking about the history behind zines, but if you're interested you might want to take a look at this website.
When making a zine, you can really use whatever you want. You can use photos, drawings or paintings, you can make a collage or only use text... Even with the subject of your zine you are free to chose whatever you want. It doesn't always have to be something deep and meaningful. You can just chose something you are interested in even if you think it is something pointless and something that not a lot of other people might be interested in.
In what comes next I will be talking about the zine I recently made and my art process. I made this zine just for myself without any intention of publishing it. Therefore my art process might be a bit all over the place. I think it is important to find a way to create your zine (or any other art project) which suits you best. Of course you can make use of a general method, but above all make sure to have fun with it. The reason I started creating art was because it made me happy. Not just the end result makes me happy (although I'm not always happy with the end result), but more importantly the process of making the thing makes me happy. I guess what I was trying to say, is that making art is something you should enjoy. It won't feel right if you need to force it.
When I was looking for some information on zines online I found a beginner's guide to making zines which was really helpful. You may want to take a peek at zines that other people have created to explore all the possibilities. I used pinterest to find some inspiration for my zine and I think it's a great online tool to create a moodboard for any project you're working on.
For the theme of my zine I decided to chose something I love to draw. And what I love drawing the most are animals (mostly cats, chickens, dogs, ...). So, I pretty quickly decided to illustrate a little story about a chicken. And when it comes to illustrating a story, whether it is for a graphic novel or a children's book, I find it helpful to create a storyboard.
But first I had to decide on the format of my zine. I think the most commonly used format (and also the one I used for my school zine) is an 8-page zine where you fold an A4 paper into a little zine of eight pages. But you can also make a little booklet or create an accordion zine like I will be doing with my zine. The possibilities are endless...
I created a little storyboard before making my zine. With a storyboard you can sketch the scenes of your story and write down some notes if you want to. It is a technique that is also frequently used in the film industry. You can make as many changes to your storyboard as you want to since it's just a sketch of what you want your story to look like.
Another step in my art process was choosing the art materials I wanted to work with. I decided to make my story in black and white and I worked with ink, pencil and black paint. I definitely think it can be fun to work with different art materials and a zine can be a really fun project to experiment with art materials you have never used before.
Before you actually start making your zine, you might feel more comfortable making some more sketches or trying out your art materials on a separate piece of paper. It's all up to you! Since I created my zine just for myself, I didn't spent that much time on the preparation. I'm normally a pretty perfectionistic person, but I tried not to be too perfectionistic this time. And I'm actually quite happy with the outcome. If you tried your hand at your first zine or if there's any other project you are proud of that you'd like to share, I would love to hear about it!
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