You may remember from this post that we started the great sunflower race earlier on in the year. After much care and attention and a move into the garden, they seem to be doing rather well. Although they are not very tall, they do add some much needed colour to the garden.

A couple of people have enquired about my previous juggling ball post and so I have put together a little guide on how I made them. The idea is for people to download and print out before having a go themselves. I quite like the idea of making up little tutorial cards for people to collect.

Just click on the image above to download the larger version.

Theres a nice little exhibition on in the centre of this small city of ours. Once you enter you are greeted by this rather curious eyeball. When you pass by it, a little electromagnet works the lever connected to the eyelid resulting in the eye blinking at you.

I must have passed it about 30 times!

I’ve dug out my mini sewing machine and gave it another bash as I try with much frustration to learn the basics. This time I set myself the challenge of making a set of juggling balls having seen a tutorial on how to make them online. Ironically, I managed to pull off the machine stitching ok, it were the stitches I did by hand that looked a little untidy. Luckily a couple of buttons sewn to each sack hides this rather well.

Although I followed a tutorial online to make these, I think I could put the process together in a much simpler format illustrating it along the way - so stay tuned. In the meantime you can see me badly testing them out in this video.

Once again the three months between zine editions have passed in a blink of an eye. It only seems like yesterday that Triumph #5 was being made up. Now Triumph #6 is nearly cooked and ready for the off as I have returned from the printers with copies of my drawings. They’re still warm. I’ve tried to write some more in this edition in order to gain more practice working with words (although a picture speaks a thousands words, for me a drawing is an easy way of avoiding doing any writing) and I think its become that little bit more personal as a result, taking on a diary feel of more thoughts and ideas as well as the usual sketches.

I intended the previous edition to be traded with other creatives around the world and this idea of setting a purpose worked really well over the last few months, so I’m sticking with it. Encouraged by the likes of this zine library, this edition will be donated to as many indie publishing libraries as possible (as well as still trading it, thats the fun part). I still have a lot of folding ahead of me.

I’ve recently been going through previous design work and updating my portfolio as a result. I’ve also produced a little taster in the form of an eight page mini-zine with the idea of including it in future zine mailings. Triumph zine #6 is coming on nicely and this edition will be donated to as many zine libraries as possible (as well as trading with other creatives of course) in the hope of getting my work noticed but more importantly supporting this great indie craze sweeping the globe. If successful then my little book of Jez designs will get read by many.