I based my compositions on the warped texture of the previous person’s work. I liked the flowing, organic quality that the piece had and wanted to incorporate that into my iteration of their work, along with color palettes I found pleasing. It was a very straight forward process, and although I am happy with what I have created, I wish I had made something a little more complex, or something that incorporated the same amount of texture that the previous piece had.

The final pieces were 5 x 8.5.

2.5” x 4”

I went around and collected stories of people’s first kisses. Each interview was spontaneous, so the persons interviewed would give me the most raw account of their first kiss.  Each was fairly unique and often times cringe-worthy. I drew three of them and then turned two of them into print zines that were small and could be easily shared and carried around. There were distributed via a wall-mounted kiosk type thing and via an online tumblr. Regardless, there was a great response to the comics both in real life and online. The comics kind of blew up on tumblr, actually, and I got a bunch of people sending me in their stories of first kisses, which was pretty cool. The 15 or so copies I put up for people to take were gone in about 10 minutes. The Small Press Expo also reblogged the second issue (the subway kiss) which was really awesome.

The comics don’t really read well on wordpress so I’ve linked to them below:

Issue one: http://firstkiss-zine.tumblr.com/post/109990504507/deliciousbrains-first-kiss-1-by-connor-i#notes

Issue two: http://deliciousbrains.tumblr.com/post/110491364895/first-kiss-2-by-connor

Issue three: http://firstkiss-zine.tumblr.com/post/109993376542/first-kiss-3-the-ballad-of-christy-price

bonusstage.squarespace.com

This zine was a visual auto biography of sorts, with each segment of the zine representing a different point of my life. The visual style used is also a means to convey the emotional content of each piece. For example, the drawing that shows myself at age 6 was drawn in a lush brush style in order to get across the fantastical feeling that the writing suggests. Another example would be the rough and stylistic art used to depict my depression at age 16.  The “bed pattern” that is used as both the front cover and as a side border was a happy accident that happened while putting the final files together in order to print and they are my favorite part of the piece. I think they really tie the whole zine together. The final zine was 8.5 x 11.

5″ x 6″

Mixed media, blog

This is a little zine about succulents that hopefully strikes a balance between useful information about succulents and other fun things. There are a variety of pages including, how to care for succulents, illustrations, a comic, etc. The zine also includes a sticker sheet and seed paper tombstones in the back.

To kickstart the launch of the zine, a small launch party was held where each of the attendees received a copy of the zine and some succulent leaf cuttings to propagate. The goal is for them to grow their cuttings into adult plants so they will be able to pass off more leaf cuttings to someone else! A propagation info sheet is also included in the back so the next person has instructions on how to take care of their leaf cuttings.

Event:

Process:

Sketchbook page

Sketchbook page

Zine assembly

10″ x 10″

Digital

My contribution to the zine was inspired by the thumbnail above. I started out with the intersecting, organic lines on the bottom right of the blue and pink piece. The lines then extend and become rigid, following a grid. I also made little ghost sticky notes for the pink side for people to draw their own ghosts and populate the “town.”

Process: