Collage background for a zine

I’m working on a new mini zine about astronaut food. For the background, I wanted to collage a bunch of images of stars, the night sky, and related textures.

I collected images out of an issue of Astronomy magazine, and I gathered some illustrations and scrapbook paper I had.

Here’s a photo of some of the images.

Several astronomy-themed images featuring celestial bodies and lunar surfaces.

Here’s a photo of what the collage looks like.

A collage features various cosmic-themed elements, including stars, planets, and celestial textures on a textured background.

Next I’ll scan this into my computer, add more images digitally, and then add text (…which I still have to write).

Washi tape as collage pieces

I’m working on a new zine, and I want to share some process pics with you. 🙂 I’m making pages with black and white illustrations and then using washi tape to make collage elements.

Here’s how I’m doing it.

  1. Draw the picture in black ink.
Auto-generated description: A drawing features a simple depiction of the Earth with stylized continents and a smaller circle resembling the moon, both using striped and dotted patterns.
  1. Lay a piece of tracing paper over the drawing. With a pencil, outline the area where washi tape will go. For this page, I wanted a curved shape around the planet.
Auto-generated description: A hand-drawn design of Earth and a crescent moon is shown on a piece of tracing paper placed over a cutting mat.
  1. Use washi tape to cover the area outlined in pencil. I kept even lines of tape but you could overlap pieces or rip the tape into smaller pieces.
Auto-generated description: Decorative tapes with star patterns are arranged on a piece of paper, all placed on a cutting mat.
  1. Flip the tracing paper over. Use scissors to cut along the pencil line.
Auto-generated description: A collection of colorful brick-like shapes arranged in an arch pattern is placed on translucent paper over a cutting mat.
  1. Glue the washi tape piece onto the drawing.
Auto-generated description: A paper cut-out art piece features a stylized Earth with textured continents and a cosmic-themed crescent shape, accompanied by a dotted moon above.

Original or the clone

The Philly Zine Fest is accepting submissions for their Anthology zine. I made a collage with a bit of text I’ve been waiting to use somewhere.

The background is photocopied aluminum foil (for real!). I simply cut a piece of aluminum foil and made a copy of it. Then I crinkled the aluminum foil a bit and made another copy. That became the background for this page.

The woman’s face and hands are stock photos taken by Ospan Ali, available on Unsplash. The text is something I wrote a while ago and hadn’t found a place for…until now. 😉

This collage is a very different style for me, and I really like how it came out! The great thing about submitting to zines is that there’s room to experiment. It feels like low stakes, since it’s only one page.

A collage of fragmented human faces with text overlays reflecting on the concept of identity and originality.

Halloween collage

I contributed a page to Webs Across the Campfire, vol. 2, a special Halloween zine from Vlasinda Productions. Copies are available in their shop.

For my page, I wanted to make a collage. I had paper from my ink color experiments to work with. I cut these into shapes for clouds, a moon, and pumpkins.

Paper collage elements for a moon, purple clouds, spider webs, and pumpkins.

For the spider webs, I drew on black cardstock with a white gel pen. Then I photocopied the webbing, so I had sections to work with.

Here’s the finished page, with text I printed and glued on, a clip art house I modified, and black cardstock for the hill.

A silhouette of a haunted house with glowing windows is set against a purple sky with a large moon, surrounded by pumpkins and spider webs, accompanied by text about fear and knowledge.

Astronaut contribution

I contributed a page to the Pocket Thoughts Annual #3, a collaborative zine that features 25+ zinesters from around the world. Each contributor was welcome to do whatever they wanted with their page. I made this astronaut illustration:

astronaut illustration

I wanted to go for a collage look, but still where I made each part of it. This is what the elements looked like, before I put the page together:

I started with black cardstock and a white gel pen for the stars in the background. If you've seen my space-themed illustrations, you know I love drawing stars on black paper. 🙂

I drew the astronaut on white cardstock and the…cloud thing on black cardstock with a black fineliner and white gel pen. Then I cut those out.

The white strips on the left of the page are pieces of white cardstock.

I printed the text using my Phomemo printer. It's so handy for little things like this!

And then I glued everything into place. To send it in for the zine, I scanned it, so I could send a jpg.

Making this page took a while since I created each element separately, but I'm really happy with how it came out.