Zine Days Healsville 31 October to 1 November

 I had a stall at a Melbourne zine day some years ago. The zine scene had a big setback with Covid lockdowns and moved on-line. It is good to see that cartoonist, Danny Zemp, is organizing, with the help of a government grant, a free two day event at the end of this month. There will be over 70 stall-holders.

  It is worth keeping in mid tat the famous Healseville Sanctuary is close at hand.

  

  For those who don't know, zines are small, usually A5 booklets, sometimes made on a single folded and cut piece of paper, other times stapled about any theme. They can consist of poems, thoughts, experiences or/and art work.

  I'll be there with framed prints of my art and also the odd original framed work. I'll also have my sketchbooks for perusal and the various zines I have made. I expect to find plenty of material there for my next art work and I'll be drawing on the spot.

  My own zines have been mini stapled comics or collections of my art work. I am currently producing zines on various themes such as my cat, comic strips, Sunday market, places I have visited, and so on.

Promotional poster:

Examples of my zines and framed work:

Memories of 'What's On'

  In January 2020 I got together with two other blokes, Mark and Travis, to nut out a booklet to distribute at Gippsland supermarket and cafes. Mark was tom be the distributor and travis the printer.

  My job was mainly illustrating adds and contributing cartoons and articles. I had a fair amount of liberty in the ideas for my cartoons but kept out the violence and sex!

  Below is the page of notes and drawings I did of Mark and Travis. Not all the ideas were implemented and we hadn't come up with a name yet.

  We finally brought it all together and the booklets promoted local businesses and events. I found it a big boost to my art as I had to nut out new ideas every month. We kept it going a number of years and even through the Covid lockdowns.

  

   

Our designated nickname was The Three Amigos.

 

  

Sale Market Caricature

 Some people are very suitable for caricature, although I didn't exaggerate that much. I did the line drawing on site and colored it this morning. Spence hasn't seen the color version although he photographed the black and white one. Since then, I jazzed it up with snake dreadlocks and the colors are just out of my head.

Trees Holding Up Their Pants

 I got this idea when I was camping today. The lower parts of the gum trees had thick bark. but the rest of the trees were smooth.

  

Portrait Group, October, Olga and Rod.

 This is my favorite picture I did of Olga. The colors on the face were more subtle but I decided to enhance them on the computer.

                                                I was very happy with this profile of Rod.

Russian, Australian, Olga, posed for our group. The three drawings I did of her vary in style and appearance. The light tint was added from the computer, as I drew on white paper. Rod, was sitting next to me and I decided to draw him also, as he drew Olga.

Chloe, the Cat, in Colored Pencil and Paint.

 I have several projects happening at once, with some illustrated zines on the horizon. Meanwhile I attend my monthly portrait group. Then, of course, there is Chloe, the cat.
  Chloe was sitting on my lap when I did a color pencil and gel pen sketch. As you can see, I like playing around with color. I also used black acrylic paint and ink to darken her up; she is after all, a black cat, well black with dark brown highlights. I also added her white 'bib', which is not always visible in my pictures of her. I used the color enhancements in the computer program, so the shades here are not identical to the original.

Clocktower Medical Waiting Room October 2025