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Hey folks! I hope everyone has had a fantastic (or even just alright) July. For any other grads/students, you'd probably agree it's difficult to pin down where the time has gone! It’s been a fairly productive month for me, as I’ve (just about) managed to keep up some usual work hours whilst working from home.
It’s been over a month now since my graduation, and I would say the hardest thing has definitely been finding motivation. When you’re working for yourself it can be tough sometimes to get up and draw (especially when Netflix picks the summer to update it's best shows...) One way I’ve found to motivate myself is a spot of reading from my favourite authors and artists, something I’ll be chatting about in this newsletter. Coming up this month: a tour of my favourite books/comics and a call out for zine submissions.
A tour of my favourite books & comics
My bookshelf - featuring sketchbooks, comics, film negatives and plants.
My book collection is pretty modest to say the least (I’ve watched one too many minimalist documentaries) but there are a couple of books I always come back to, re-reading them every once in a while when the need for inspiration strikes. To kick of this month’s newsletter, I’m going to give a quick review of my favourite titles, ranging from self-help to comics and graphic novels.
Steal Like an Artist (+ Series) – Austin Kleon
The Steal Like An Artist series so far
If there’s one book I always recommend to fellow artists, it’s this one. Steal Like an Artist helped me out of a major artistic funk post-college. After all, how do you produce your own artistic content? The answer is simple: great artist’s steal.
An excerpt from How to Steal Like an Artist
Throughout the book we get to explore Kleon’s working process, as he shares his thoughts on creativity and productivity. Kleon works primarily as a writer and visual artist, but the concepts explored in the series are easily transferable to any creative medium or business.
The following books, Show Your Work! and Keep Going are worthy sequels, as Kleon tells us how to get our work out there on social media, and dealing with the consequences of doing what you love as your job.
Paper Girls
Paper Girls books 1-5
Taking the spot of my favourite comic series of all time, Paper Girls is a character-driven sci-fi/time travel story based in the 1980s. Think Stranger Things but with four teenage girls as the protagonists. It’s funny, sad, heart-warming and everything in-between, as we follow the cast navigating growing up in a world under threat.
There’s five books out at the time of this post, with the sixth and final edition coming out this September. A must read!
Comic con discoveries
A selection of my Comic Con favourites
For the past couple of years now, I’ve been attending London’s MCM Comic Con in October. There’s plenty to see at Comic Con, but as an illustration fan I always head straight for the comic village. I highly recommend the event if you’re in the UK, as it’s a great chance to meet and chat with an array of artists and writers.
Here are a couple of my favourites from regular attendees at the convention:
Call out for zine submissions
When I started my Etsy store back in 2016, one of the first products I ever listed was a zine. They were pretty basic, made using a folded up A3 sheet of paper and some print outs of my film photographs, photocopied in the school library. To my surprise I actually sold a few copies!
Silence zine, using film photography and extracts from Audre Lorde
What’s always struck me most about zines is their ability to share your thought processes/experiences with other people in an accessible format. They can be made as basic or complex as you like, but the heart is always there. It’s been a while since my last zine, so I thought I’d step things up a little for my next project.
Entitled A Guide to Living in London, it will be a short A5 publication that collects the experiences, advice and stories of those living in the city of London. Accompanied with the text will be illustrations by myself – emulating the 1950s/60s design style seen in books like This is London by M Sasek and Henri’s Walk to Paris by Saul Bass. 
Book inspiration for the new zine
I’m looking to premiere the zine next year, this time ditching the photocopier and printing it professionally. The only thing I’m missing is some submissions from others living in London, or those who have lived in the capital in the past. If that sounds like you and you’d like to take part, all you have to do is fill out the information below and email me at georgina-baker@outlook.com, or use the contact page above.
"Don’t feed the pigeons! I fed a pigeon half a Greg’s sausage roll once and it followed me all the way home – it even got on the tube with me! Never. Again." - Stephen Fry, Kensington
Thanks London!
Here’s a sneeky peek of the cover I’m working on…
Some stuff I’ve been enjoying this month
Pride in London, 6th July 2019
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See you next month! - Georgina :) Follow me on: Etsy/Instagram/Facebook Comments are closed.
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