For those of you who remember, back in the day I used to do a few zines*, and I've been thinking of doing another. Some of who who do remember are probably breathing a sigh of relief that I've not finished another zine, those of you who were of my few fan who bought or traded for my zine back-in-the-day are probably frowning right now.

I have ideas, oh man, do I have ideas. But I am having issues committing them to paper. OR I commit them to paper and I immediately decide they are not good enough for print or to go to the effort of scanning and printing, or I tell myself that scanning and resizing them will make them illegible and who wants to read a zine that is written in illegible chicken scratch.** Especially if it's resized and warped chicken scratch. Furthermore the idea of taking the pages that I've been thinking of as for the zine and transcribing them makes my head twitch, really it does.

So I keep thinking in the back of my mind: ZINE ZINE ZINE, I get to a point where its time to work on it and I have all kinds of mental excuses that stop me from actually working on the zine and allow me the excuse of "It won't work." So rather than working on it, I spend my time tweeting, browsing the 'nets and not working on it.

SO As my first step BACK into zine world I'm hoping to scan pages from my art journals. Some will be printed in black and white and others in color, we'll see how that works. I have a feeling it's going to be a big pain in the arse. Which of course will be another GIANT excuse not to work on my zine. It's been a long time, i think the longer it's been the harder it is to start working on it again.

*To Avoid Suffocation from 1998 to 2000 6 issues, The Pocket Rocket from '99 to '02 and it had about 15 issues. MY print run at the largest for TAS was 100 zines. I also did a slew of one off "Art Zines" I have another 15 or so of those to my credit. These were done under the names LessH, LessGull (long stupid story) and simply Less as well as some email addresses.

**A teacher once referred to my handwriting as cockroach droppings on paper. I know this is probably a quote from a book but it really does credit to how BAD my handwriting really it, unless I really try or I'm writing in a particular style or have JUST done some calligraphy my handwriting is the epitome of lazy.

149/365
Originally uploaded by Boz Schurr

This is a very cool image of a heart. I'm partial to heart diagrams, for a variety of reasons, but this is a particularly cool one.

Chris Dent does some great stuff here in this moleskine of city scapes and other drawings. I love simplicity of the black and white and the activity of his line. Very nice and well done. Great inspiration to draw everyday!

I really like how Millande  describes how to do this technique and it would work very very well for a darker sort of art journal.

fall is here
Originally uploaded by lessherger

I’ve been steadily working in my journal. THis is from a week or so ago. It’s a gesso covered page, written on in sharpie, covered in gesso, areas masked out, painted on in paint, masked, then stenciled with paint and spray inks. I applied a layer of watercolor crayons and sealer. I loaded a bunch of pages from my journal into flickr. You can see them here.

Again I really like the darker art focus in this journal. Good stuff, intriguing.

fall is here
Originally uploaded by lessherger

This is my favorite page out of my current art journal. I made it by covering the page in gesso, then writing on it in sharpie, going over that with a very thin coat of gesso. Then I masked out my tree shapes with painters tape, that I cut with an exacto,

I painted over the shapes with yellow acrylic, then put layers of watercolor crayon over the top of that. I used orange red and yellow. I then cut a stencil and a few masks from some old poster I had around. I covered the back in spray glue. I put down the masks where I wanted the yellow colro to stay. I then used the stencil to add layers of green, blue, red, orange, and dark yellow spray inks. My intent was to give the feel of leaves falling.

the layers of color and ink also help to obscure the actual writing with the sharpie, which lifts through the layers of gesso and acrylic to add some visual texture to the painting itself. I like this page a lot because of thes layers of color and meaning.

The journal entry was about how much I love fall but miss being in school.

I've been selling my work online for a long time now, about 10 years. I've sold art, books and even books. I've been the most successful with books. In the early days of eBay I learned a lot; about customer service, how to package for shipping, and creating a listing.

I'm going to write about a failure I had very early in my eBay sales. I had been making books for about 6 months. Religiously. I was single, living alone and was occupying my time with binding books on a daily basis. I was selling the books I was making just to get rid of them so I could make room for new books. I had a problem. Anyway. I had just started working with leather. I had recycled a grey pigskin coat into a cover. I had laminated a really neat Italian printed paper the the inside. I used eyelets on the spine. And thick 100% cotton paper inside. It was one of my first eyelet, long stitch flap closure books (a design that was later stolen from me by an unscrupulous buyer.) I stitched it up, scanned it (the digital camera came later), and listed it on eBay. What I failed to notice was that the leather shrank after binding. I assume it had something to do with the heat activated glue I used to adhere the paper and the humid conditions in my apartment, we'll never know. A week later, the bidding ended and a buyer form Hong Kong wins. I think that he won for a paltry $20. (If I made this book now I'd sell it for close to $50)

As I packaged the journal, I noticed the shrink checked the pics online, it was visible there. So, I mailed it. It wasn't that much- about a millimeter or 2 off the head, or so I told myself.

A week later it arrives to its destination.

I received the most scathing, horrifying and embarrassing email ever. I read the email as the pics downloaded (I was on dial up) and immediately felt awful. The email was completely over the top, included 9 hi res pics, and details about why I sucked both as a binder and as a person as well as some very outlandish requests, the least of which was that I go f*ck myself. I got really really angry. First at him , then at me. I noticed the issue, checked it online, but didn't notify the buyer. Which should have been my first course of action. Secondly I didn't have a return policy. I allowed the guy  to return the item and sold it to the next person down the list, with the declaration of the issue. They got a steal and I learned a lesson.

First valuable lesson: Always have a return policy. It must be clear, easily understood and specific. Mine is simple: Don't like it return it in the same condition it arrived. Shipping is not refunded, the cost of item will be refunded after I receive the item and inspect it. I will not refund it someone's kids, pets or elderly parents damage it. (That last bit is not a joke, I am so glad I'm not selling on eBay anymore.)

Second Valuable Lesson: Be honest in the listing. Before listing, inspect the item for imperfections. If there are any, list them. Include a photo that shows the imperfection. Better yet, don't list it. If possible put only top quality merch up. Otherwise you can get a reputation of listing second rate crap. I have a section of my shop called "seconds." If I need to get rid of my seconds I list them there at a discount price. Most of the time though, I use them as promo for my shop.

These lessons are from custom orders, Etsy and Artfire in more recent years:

Third Valuable Lesson: Get a feel for buyers and know your limitations. Just because I CAN make a journal doesn't mean I have time, the energy or the ability to comply with every request that comes into my inbox. I have a list of binders that I know and trust will do great work for people. I send the requests for things I don't do or can't handle at a given moment. (I don't do pink, sparkly, bedazzled stuff, don't even ask.) I am no longer shy about saying no.

Fourth Valuable Lesson: No money yet, no ship. End of story. I have $40 in books essentially stolen from me becuase I believed someone to be honest when she said that she would pay me after a paypal mistake was fixed. My mistake. It'll never happen again. Paypal fouled up? Sorry. I'll hold the books until it clears up. I had a check bounce and I was charged $25, each time the bank tried to cash it. They try 3 times. My $10 sale cost me $75. Personal checks not accepted. I have to remember that to many people I'm a faceless seller on etsy and artfire. I'm not a person. I'm not someone they know. I try and personalize my studio and listings but it can go only so far. In short some people don't care about screwing over someone they don't know.

Fifth Valuable Lesson: Be clear about shipping costs. People love to bitch about shipping costs. Journals are made of paper and paper is heavy, so shipping is going to be high. I charge as close to exact shipping as possible. I add a small amount on to cover packing materials and I try to collect recycled packing materials at work. I gather up large amounts of bubble wrap there and I buy large envelopes by the 500 count case to keep costs down. I try to ship priority more often than not because it's a flat rate. I often return the extra money.

I'm sure I can come up with more lessons learned the hard way, but for now I'm done. Feel free to leave your lessons in the comments.