New project: Draw Your Vegetables

It's summertime in the northern hemisphere, and for many of us that means more fresh vegetables, finally. Because this is my first year participating in a CSA, I thought it would be cool to draw my vegetables each week. Not only will this help me to keep a record of the veggies and fruits received (so in planning for next year, this is good "was it worth it" evidence), but it will get me thinking about seasonal recipes and what the heck to do with 20 heads of lettuce (instinct: run away screaming).

Keeping in mind that many people eat more vegetables this time of year, I thought it would be cool to start up a Flickr group called Draw Your Vegetables, a chance to share the contents of your crisper every week (or as often as you'd like to draw them). So whether you participate in community-supported agriculture, visit a local farm stand or farmer's market, grow your own vegetables in your yard, or go to the local supermarket, please join us. All of these vegetables should be drawn!

Orderly Disorder tour poster

It's been a busy few weeks! In the midst of everything, I agreed to draw this flier for Orderly Disorder: Zinester Librarians in Circulation Tour, a nine-city tour of the southeast and midwest by a crew of zinester librarians in a magical zinemobile. The tour starts off in two Sundays from New Orleans, and makes stops in Atlanta, Murfreesboro TN, Pittsburgh, Cleveland... well, you get the idea. See the website for details.

The group didn't have a set idea for the poster, so they left it up to me to come up with a concept. I pictured the zinemobile as an ice cream truck with wings and lots of zines fluttering around, so that's what we've got here. There was an awful lot of text to fit in, so I alternated a few different styles of hand-drawn type to create an hierarchy of information and to look cool. I also incorporated the list of stops and participants typed on my typewriter, which gave it an old-school cut-and-paste zine look.

The zinemobile isn't coming within several states of where I am, but if you're in one of the cities it plans to visit, be sure to check the blog for more info. The zinester librarians will be reading from their own work, which should be really cool.

Owls!

I've been waiting for ages to be able to show this to you. Several months ago, a friend of the family (actually my sister's oldest friend--I think they've been pals since kindergarten) contacted me about designing baby shower invitations for her sister. They wanted to use an owl theme, and they didn't have too many requirements besides that, so I was free to add what I thought would work best. This is what I came up with.

They also wanted me to design a thank-you note that could be sent to party guests following the shower. We agreed that I shouldn't reinvent the wheel, so I traced the owls from the invite and kept it simple.





I had drawn the initial illustrations in ink, and then colored them with watercolor. In order to keep the watercolor effect, I printed all the invitations and thank-you notes on my home inkjet printer. This was possible because we didn't need too many invites/thank you cards, but for a larger print run I'd definitely consider using a printing service in the future. I love printing and comping, but I also like taking a break while someone else takes care of all that stuff, you know? Catch a movie or something. Anyway, the cards all turned out great, everyone loved them, and it was a fun little project for early Spring.

Interview on the Craftland blog today

Exciting news: today I am the featured artist on the Craftland blog.

Craftland is a store in Providence, Rhode Island, that sells items made by indie designers, many from New England and others from faraway lands. Craftland has carried my goods in their special holiday sale for the past few years, and they currently carry a lot of my handmade items in their year-round shop. It has always been a great experience working with them, and they have helped me bring my work to a larger audience, so when they asked if they could interview me for the blog, I said OF COURSE.

The interview features lots of discussion about my work space, philosophizing about winner medals, some stuff about my zine history, and other topics. There is also a photo of me looking cool as a cucumber drinking a beer from a glass (fancy!!) at Vesuvio Cafe in San Francisco. Vesuvio is directly across Jack Kerouac Alley from City Lights bookstore, and with all those Beat poet connections it is an ideal place for being cool. Just saying.

Thank you Craftland! And thank YOU for reading.

Attn: zine readers! Many Mails!

Dear people who have read my latest zine, Miss Sequential #4,

Thank you for reading! I wanted to assure you that I was not kidding about the mini-zine that you could get from me if you sent a SASE. Here is a photo, so you will know it is real:



Look at that cover paper. Fancy! This is a zine of drawings of all the mail I sent out from January-March 2011. Yes, I drew all those mails.

And I should say that SASE is the ONLY way you can get one of these mini zines. They're not going to distros, they're not going to be with the rest of my zines in my Etsy shop.

If you haven't read Miss Sequential #4, you can order it here.

If you want to read the mini Many Mails zine only, you can send a SASE (or an IRC if you're outside the USA) to:

Marissa Falco
65 Newton Street #2
Somerville, MA 02143


Note: Zine dimensions are about 4 x 4.5 inches, so any envelope that will accommodate that will be perfect. If you are in the USA, a 44-cent stamp will be sufficient.