#kristynabaczynski

INTERVIEW with Kristyna Baczynski

Thanks so much for letting me interview you! Your zines are always a dream to read, and I enjoyed your latest one - WINTER WILD - a lot! I love that it focuses on plants and fungus (COOL!) that thrive during the colder months of the year. I think that a lot of modern life is spent sitting in front of a screen, whether its a tv, or laptop, or mobile, or whatever! So I like zines that remind me to notice little details in natural world. WINTER WILD focuses on plants but its one of those special zines that makes you enjoy small moments and notice details more. Its also a super special zine because it makes me (Captain Cavetroll - who is on the internet like 24/7) want to get my boots on and snoop around the hills looking for plants and leaves and shrubs and fungus. I always suspected that plant names were probably interesting, but you proved and won that case with your zine!

1. What inspired you to make this stunner of a zine?

The ever-persuasive January Blues compelled me to make it! I tend to have a tough time at the start of the year... recovering from time off and lack of illustration work leaves me sluggish and the melancholy of new years shakes me to my core. So I decided to try making work about this eerie winter limbo. I wanted to make a comic, but feeling low meant I didn't trust myself to craft a fiction, which led me to research some facts. The plant research made me feel positive and excited, so it kinda went from there. 2. What is your all-time favourite plant to spot when you are out and about? Any particular reason why? I got super excited when I saw some Yellow Brain fungus recently in North Wales. I had researched it for the zine, but couldn't find any actual examples in the woodland near my house, so seeing that was a total thrill. It's so beautiful and delicate, but totally gross and magical too. 3. I think I read somewhere, maybe on your facebook page, that you are going to make a new zine every month this year! Is that true - cuz woah, that is epic! Hows it been going with that so far? Yeah - big talk! It's been pretty good so far. January and February were manageable months for doing my other illustration work alongside these self-published zine projects. It's beneficial to make time for your own creative pursuits, and I love making comics and zines so, so much. March is proving a bit more difficult, as I've had a landslide of client work come in... But limitation and restriction are good too. 4. I noticed that you are quite partial to printing your zines using a risograph printer. What attracts you to riso? Do you print all your zines on your own printer? I love risograph! I managed to get my own machine last January and sourced a few colour drums and spare parts to keep it ticking over. I print almost all my own prints, zines and comics on this machine. Having it as a resource has been really liberating - not having to worry about massive printing cost risks when working on a project is great. I like the print quality, which is quite low-fi and textured. It breathes life into flat colour. I love screenprinting too, but never have enough time to get out and book workshop time, so risograph is the perfect solution. 5. Do you collect anything? Oh boy... err, YES. So much stuff! My studio is a total trinket cave. Stamps, tin toys, hornsea pottery, stationery, miniature books, matchbox labels, embroidery, zines... and I find any small ceramic animal completely irresistible. 6. And lastly, I know its almost Spring, but what are your favourite things about winter? ( I'm really bad at finding good things to say about winter so I like asking people that.. ) It's a tough season! Putting out food for birds and squirrels in winter is special, you really see them appreciate it. I also enjoy exhuming my jumper and knitwear collection, as there are some novelty designs I can only wear round the house when it's super cold.

Thanks Kristyna! 

You can find more of Kristyna here www.kristyna.co.uk