March 25 New (Continent) Zine Letter

Sierra Flanagan
May 28
3 min read

Welcome to the March 2025 edition of my New-Zine Letter. There are several ways to read this newsletter zine:

1. If you want to get it right to your inbox monthly you can subscibe here. The same format in the email (images and text) are available further down this post

2. If you want to print it out and read it off paper just print out the PDF below double-sided, fold, and cut!

Thank you for reading!

keep scrolling for the text version of the New Zine Letter

New (continent) Zine (letter)

Wowee it feels like a lifetime has passed since I last checked in! As I write this I’m zooming around New Zealand ... but more on that next month! I’ve had the privilege in recent weeks to visit Singapore, Thailand, and Australia (the last one for less than 24 hours).

Singapore’s beauty, art, design, history, and mainly its food have blown my mind — Golden Mile food center you have my ❤️. Seeing the Nanyang style paintings in person at the Singapore National gallery was just incredible. In Singapore I treated myself to some vibrant-colored crayons and nice sketchbooks. In my sketches I’ve been trying to capture as much of this trip as possible, allowing myself to be influenced by the great artists and natural beauty of these corners of the world.

While in Thailand relaxation and going with the flow were top priority and let me tell you there’s no better place for it. Going from London to Thailand in recent months rightly feels like opposite ends of the earth in just about every sense. Whether it was swimming in bioluminescent water, hiking to caves, seeing hundreds of wild butterflies, swimming in jungle streams, seeing friends (!), watching the sun set over an island from an island, or the abundance of kindness from strangers, it was one giant pinch-me experience.

Australia — I barely saw you but damn Sydney is sick and so are bin chickens now.

Signing off from somewhere in the Pacific!

Xoxo Sierra

🪲🌴🐒🧴☀️🇹🇭🏍️🇸🇬✈️🦋🦘🇦🇺🌏

Hot Off the ‘Easel’: Scoot Scoot

Our accommodation in Thailand had some paints available and kindly allowed me to paint this using their materials: Lobster Aluminum outdoor paint, wooden board (possibly and old seat), minimal water, and one used brush. The subject is the scooter we rented and made lots of 7/11 trips on. While I always try to use paint and water sparingly, It’s been a while since I had such strict constrains colors and materials while painting and I loved the challenge. The loose style of brush strokes in the painting were influenced by Lim Tze Peng and the allowance of space left unpainted was influenced by Liu Kang.

A Great Purchase

The best purchase in Singapore was a couple collections of short fiction by authors from different cultural backgrounds. The standout is a ‘condemned’ catholic school book from the 80’s of stories from Singaporean authors. Reading these stories has provided a window into Singapore’s varied cultures from a range of perspectives, and has allowed me to continue this cultural education beyond my time there. I’m now trying to find something similar where possible during future travel. Every day is a school day!

Where in the World is Andy The Ant?

Can you guess where Andy is? Be the first to guess correctly and I'll draw your portrait in a future New-Zine Letter! (Last month Andy was @ the Ballyhackamore Library in Belfast!)

Culture Nutrition

Here are some of the things I've read / seen or places visited in recent weeks.

Movies

Sleepless in Seattle 🌙

A Real Pain 🇵🇱

My Old Ass 🍄

Happy Gilmore ⛳️

Shrek 🧅

Games

Super Mario Party Jamboree 🥳

Museums

Singapore National Gallery 🖼️

Singapore National Orchid Garden 🌸

Thank you for reading and subscribing! xoxo - Sierra