I forgot that I had decided to put these here, instead of just on Notes and defaulted to posting to Notes when I finished.
Today was gentle, very non-thinky practice. I feel like I might be getting whatever it was some of the other people in the family had last week. I slept for much longer than usual (now, to be fair, that’s still less than those magic eight hours that people say you’re supposed to get). I found a very quick and gentle yoga practice, having happily sought out the 30 minute and energy-giving ones at the weekend. And I drank two cups of sweet tea (with almond milk and dark brown sugar) and ate peanut butter on toast, rather than the vegan dark chocolate protein crunch breakfast cereal I’ve been enjoying lately. Oh, and I listened to The Archers instead of The Fraud (by Zadie Smith).
It was a comfort morning. The Gilmore Girls were calling out to me to settle on the sofa and cocoon myself in blankets, but I held back, because if I had answered their call I would have struggled to get back up and I was hopeful that I would need to walk someone to school (I don’t) and then I have a third proof check to finish (of a very interesting book that I would love to properly read, but I have to stick to checking that the commas have been placed correctly, and text boxes resized and moved where they need to be and page numbers added right).
First, though, I have managed to persuade my printer to print out the pages for the zine. It didn’t want to print from InDesign or from Acrobat; but it’s agreed to print from jpgs of the page. Though, as I speak it has currently messed two pages up, fed one through blank and is currently having a break to I don’t know what. Maybe smoke a joint? Thank goodness I have very few paid subscribers to send this out to. I worked out I would need around 25 before I could think about getting them professionally printed.1
The paper I bought that was supposed to not bleed through does bleed through. Last month you could very clearly see the pictures on the other side of the pages. This month? You can, too. Honestly seems no different. Next month? Who knows. Maybe I will give up on this really quite old printer and get a cheap new one that will just print double-sided with no need for hand-holding, therapy and nutrition plans.
But… I am loving putting them together. And I am printing a few extras which are sitting on my shelves next to the books and cards I have illustrated, validating over a decade of exploring this particular creative endeavour more deeply. In the same way as I love flicking through my sketchbooks and seeing progress and ideas and thoughts that have come out of my head, I also love having books and cards (and bags and mugs) with my art on sitting on shelves, and pictures I created sat on the walk, to look at2.
Because they remind me that, somewhere out in the world, someone has a book open with pictures I drew helping guide them in their learning or their journey of self-awareness, somewhere out there in the world someone is looking up at their wall and smiling at a picture I drew, somewhere out there in the world someone is opening a box of tissues covered in a pattern I created, somewhere out there in the world someone is sipping a hot herbal tea from a mug covered in a pattern I created, somewhere out there in the world someone is opening a Substack post or Note, or scrolling through Instagram, or doing a Google Image search and seeing something I drew or wrote and feeling something.
That’s enough for me. Knowing that there are little moments where art that has come from my head is touching someone else’s head or heart. It doesn’t have to be a bestseller of any kind. It just has to connect to and mean something to someone out there, somewhere in the world.
That’s enough. For me.
I got to enough for my paid subscribers (if you’re one of them, look out for the post in the next day or two). And wasted a total of 20 sheets of paper - some with one side printed and a fraction of the other side, some with one side printed and almost the whole of the other side printed, just running off the edge. Some with weird compressed versions of one of the illustrations on that page.
I do also have pictures that lots of other people created on my walls!