‘Zine’ in a Weekend

As part of a collaboration with Wimbledon Bookfest we worked with artist Ania Bas to create and publish a Zine in a weekend.

Taking literary inspiration we decided to publish a zine for budding authors on what makes a good children’s book from the point of view of the children.

We would have 2 afternoons to produce and edit the material.

We began by warming up our bodies and minds and getting to know each other.

We did some drawing activities around the idea of portrait and character. Imagining characters Drawing each other while linked together Drawing each other from memory We made some pretty good portraits to begin with.

We started to think about what makes a GREAT character and brainstormed some of our favourites.

We then moved on to looking at some of Ania’s publications, printed on a Riso printer. This is an economical and environmentally friendly way to print which uses recycled paper – and the type of print we would go for!

We had decided to print in 2 colour – so all our drawings would have to be in a limited palette of 2 colours!

We started by drawing our favourite character in an exciting action – to let our audience know what we find interesting.

Next we learnt some new collage techniques to give our characters new properties.

We made an outline of a character and filled it with collage material that said something about our character.

We then went on to do some thinking and brainstorming on what makes a good character. We came up with a list of titles to go in the zine.

We painted them in bold, 2 colour posters that could be shrunk on the computer and inserted into the finished publication.

We then made more paintings of the characters alter ego or arch enemy!

Our group of senior editors – those on the 2 day course – decided the title for the magazine.

We had some great material at the end of the first day.

Page one will be all about characters, during day 2 we will explore what makes a good plot.

Senior editors will work to select and edit material for the final zine that will then go to the designers, publishers and finally to you – hopefully in about a month.

We hope they enjoy the process!