Zine Project

The Girl She Was

A series of illustrated scenes with text, depicting a story involving a girl, a house, a lantern, a door, and a goodbye, set against a textured, brown and gold background.

When I created the background in sepia ink, it immediately stood out as a landscape, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it. It stayed in a drawer for a couple years, before I decided to mix digital text and art additions with the texture of handmade.

Silhouette of a person riding a horse in a desert landscape with mountains and a cloudy sky, in sepia tones.
A painting of an interior scene showing a small house in the lower right corner, with a window with a burning lantern outside. Text on the image reads: "His lantern still burned in the window, after years."
Text overlay on abstract brown and black painted background reads, 'When he opened the door, he wept—' with white and black line drawings of raindrops.
A sepia-toned photograph of a mountain landscape with a silhouetted figure standing on a hill in the foreground. The scene includes distant mountains and a cloudy sky with the caption, 'not for her scars, but for the girl'.
A watercolor painting of a person in profile with a sunset background and falling leaves, with the text "he had kissed goodbye" at the top.
A person's hand with rings holding a printed storybook or illustrated paper on a wooden table surrounded by various small objects, including pencils, a magnifying glass, pinecones, stones, and decorative items, with a part of the story visible in the