Mountain sunset, fruits and veg, and a header for an unborn zine
Dear Sarah - Day 160 of our daily drawing exchange
June 9, 2025
Dear Nikki,
I tried again to do a colour-blended mountain sunset, this time following a really good teacher on YouTube.
I'm happier with the result--Ooh, look! Trees!--but will try to mix more subtle colours another time. Student grade colours are definitely more difficult to work with (as is cheap paper) but I do love colour!! And wet on wet painting is a lot of fun.
I also love black, white and gray! Today's drawing lesson was fruit and veg--all quite small, and some more successful than others. The teacher's methodology was not hard to follow, but also not intuitive for me. Hence the blobby pears. The idea was to do a whole page of apples, a page of pears etc etc., but as you can see, I didn't do that. Maybe another day, I'll do a page of radishes!


I'm intrigued by the stuff you are doing on Procreate--I don't own an iPad, so it's all a total mystery to me, but your green bridge was very eerie and cool.
Tomorrow I'll be back at work--I've had a few days where there was nothing pressing and now suddenly there is. Ah, freelancing. But it's been a lovely few days. Walking, making art, seeing friends.
XO S
Hi Sarah -
I bet you’d have fun with an iPad - and, be driven crazy by it at the same time. Sort of like watercolours… I’m loving your pen drawings - and, your use of colour - at some point the two will come together and make beautiful babies.
Speaking of colour!! (I think the exclamation points are appropriate today).
I’ve been reading about graffiti, street art, photography, and urban spaces - and also thinking (and reading) about zines. My psychogeography project in Paris will involve zines, random encounters of passersby therewith, bridges, and some sort of chronicling on the spot of how people interact with the planted zines they find.
All of that (especially the bit about graffiti and tagging) led me to think ‘I’ve never tagged anything.’ Which catapulted me down a deep rabbit hole at the bottom of which was this not-exactly-a-tag that could perhaps become part of a masthead? Not sure. While you are here in Canmore I may be creating some test zines to be placed on local bridges as I have some logistics to sort out… in which case, you may (or may not) see this tag/header whatever it is IRL. (BTW - If you pronounce this ‘en-zyne’ it sort of reminds me of ‘enzyme’ which suggests catalysis… It does feel as though some weird-ass alchemical reaction is taking place just below the surface. I can only hope it will eventually coalesce into some kind of final project.)
BTW - the nascent project has its own email address - nikkizines at geeeeemail dot com. At this point, I have no idea what that address might be used for, but just in case anyone wants to write to me there, feel free.
That’s it for me - those few letters (or all the convoluted thinking that led me there) has worn me right out!
Until tomorrow -
Nikki