The very beginning of my Plant Lyfe zine started last August when I wanted to make drawing more of a habit. I got a sketch book just for my daily drawings and originally was going to draw items I found around my home. First day I went straight for my house plants and never strayed. I had PLENTY of plants in equally interesting pots to draw. I would take 30 minutes to over an hour to finish each drawing and then share a little clip of the plant with the drawing together for comparison. I had a growing collection of drawings, but no real plan for them. I just COULDN’T bring myself to remove them from the unfortunately beautiful sketch book they lived in. So after brainstorming for a couple of months, I thought of a zine.
Zines are a low budget DIY publication used to share your story, ideas, art, anything really. Taking these very personal small drawings of my plant children and putting them into a smaller book-format creates an intimate relationship for the viewer as well. Each container reflects the plants’ personality and style. (They don’t have names but they do have souls, kind of) So when it came time to title the zine I wanted something descriptive, but also something that had a personality. Like MTV’s True Life meets those horrible A Plant’s Life Cycle videos from 7th grade Biology. Result, “Plant Lyfe”. One giant book would have been too bulky so I decided to split it into 3 volumes. Each includes 10 drawings and each is dedicated to my plants from my past, present and future. I scanned and edited the drawings before putting them into spreads. I decided to hand draw all the text to maintain a similar feeling to the drawings. Each volume has its own color cover and typography for the title. Zines are typically priced very low to insure they are affordable for everyone. I’m selling each zine for $10 and the trio for $25. The idea of selling the originals is still up in the air. It all depends on demand of course or if someone just CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT AN ORIGINAL. Maybe one day. A girl can dream.
