moleskinerie

Featured Artist: Joanna Gniady

"Moleskine is one of the things I can’t do without. It is an obsession, addiction, everlasting love. Full of memories and dreams, quotes and poems, names and ideas, it is a kind of map, showing where I have been, where I am now and where I would like to be. I wish I could draw and fill my Moleskine with sketches of fascinating places, people or objects. Instead, I write about them, using the old Parker 51, crazy Waterman Audace and dear Marlen roller.

Moleskine is also one of the dreams that came true. The first one I got a year ago and it was a wonderful surprise and very important present. I will never forget the moment when I took it out from the yellow envelope and gazed at it, turning page by page, as if it was the most awaited book in my whole life. From that time I have gathered a couple of Moleskines and always have some of them at hand – in my handbag, under the bed, next to the morning cup of coffee.

I do believe in magic hidden in people and things. Moleskine embodies it for certain."

Joanna Gniady

Visit her blog, "Dream After Dream"
View her Moleskine photoset on FLICKR

Moleskine Techniques from Hollis Brown Thornton

Artist  Hollis Brown Thornton has kindly shared the techniques used in those  stunning artworks:

My Moleskine drawings are pages I take out of the 5 x 8 inch sketchbooks, which makes pages 8 1/4 x 10 1/4 inches. I simply cut the threads that hold the grouped pages in the book and gently pull them out.  Every third group of pages is glued, so I don't use them.  I began doing this basically as a way to frame and show this paper work.  I couldn't find a paper with a similar smoothness and yellow tone.

I currently do two types of drawings on this Moleskine paper.  The first is a standard ink/graphite combination. Sometimes I print onto the paper with an ink jet printer by taping the paper to computer paper and sending it through the printer.  The graphite is 0.5mm BIC mechanical pencils and the permanent markers are a combination of Sharpie, Prismacolor, and Copic.  One trick I use with the ink is to draw on the back of the page, allowing the ink to bleed through.  This often creates a more atmospheric/hazy
effect.  Copic works best for this effect.

The other type of drawing is a transfer process.  The first step is creating the image on the computer, in Photoshop.  I scan family photos (CanoScan LiDE 80) as well as various other doodle/scribble drawings.  I combine these drawings and photographs in Photoshop.  I use the wand and erase tools in Photoshop to make other erasure manipulations to the image.

Once that image is created, I burn the image to a disk and take it to a photocopy store (a Kinko's or Staples).  They create the photocopies and I then transfer the image.  What follows is a step by step of the transfer process:

1.  Begin with either a black & white or color photocopy, on plain paper. (Laser prints will also work.  Ink jet
prints, however, will not work, you will loose about 80% of the color intensity, resulting in a very faint image.)

2.  Staple the photocopy, print surface up, to a flat surface.  This prevents the paper from wrinkling from the
expanding and shrinking process the paper goes through while wet and drying.  Just put one staple in each corner, about 1/4 inch from the edge.

3.  Paint 2 or 3 layers of acrylic medium onto the print surface of the photocopy (you may also use gesso to transfer, and it works perfectly fine, but you receive a fainter image, and the darks are not as dark as they are with the acrylic medium transfer).  Allow each layer to completely dry before applying the next.   Speed up the drying process by using a fan.

4.  Now, you are about to attach your image to your transfer surface.  I recommend using either wood or canvas your first several attempts.  This process can be done on paper, but it's very delicate.  If canvas, either attach the canvas to a wall (unstretched) or build a plywood surface the size of your actual stretcher.  You need a resistant surface once you remove the paper after the next few steps.

5.  Once the layers are dry, apply a thin layer of water with a spray bottle or a brush.  You don't want the image soaked, just damp.  This step allows the paper to expand. Let is stay damp for 2 or 3 minutes.  Apply a layer of the acrylic medium to the surface you are transferring to and then place your image, face down (face down is with image that you have painted down onto the surface, into the wet paint, with the unpainted side of the paper facing up).

6. Place the center of the image down first and work the air bubbles out to the edge.  Be gentle, you can either tear or distort the paper pushing the air bubbles out, especially if the paper is wet or if there is humidity. For large transfers, I use a screen-print squeegee.  You can also remove air bubbles by taking an x-acto knife, cutting a small 1/8 or 1/16 inch slit in the middle of the air bubble, and pushing the air out the small hole.

7.  Let the paint completely dry.  The transfer will dry fastest in hot, dry environments and slowest in cold or
humid environments.  You will be able to feel moisture on the back of the photocopy paper, as well as feel the softness of the drying paint when the transfer is still wet.  12 - 24 hours is a safe dry time.  Be sure to use a fan while drying the transfer.  This keeps the paper from wrinkling during the drying (the wrinkled paper is a great effect, so you may also want to take advantage of it.... if this is the case, do not wet the paper before you transfer, the wrinkles are caused by the paper expanding when wet, as well as moisture sitting on the surface of the paper while drying).

8.  Once the transfer is dry, take a spray water bottle and wet the paper.  Take any type of stiff-bristle brush.  I use a plastic brush made by a company Quickie, which they sell at any grocery store.  It is about 4 inches long, has a handle, and 2-3 inch plastic bristles.

9.  Scrub the wet paper.  This is why you need a resistant surface.  You simply can't do this on a stretched canvas, unless it has a lot of paint.  You begin by scrubbing as hard as you can and, as you remove the layers, begin scrubbing more delicately.  I typically scrub a layer, wipe off the excess with my hand, rewet, scrub again, wipe off, rewet, take an old t-shirt and get the small particles left behind.  Then I will just barely rewet and use my fingers to get any tiny bits of paper left behind.  You want to remove all of the paper.  On a small 10 x 10 inch transfer on canvas, it typically takes about 10 minutes to remove all of the paper.

10.  You should now have a complete transfer of your original image to the new surface.  The acrylic medium you used for the transfer creates a stronger bond than that of the binder that holds the pigment to the original piece of paper. Sometimes, during the scrubbing process, areas of the photocopy will rub off.  This can be caused by large air bubbles drying under the surface of the photocopy, not allowing the acrylic medium or gesso to dry to the transfer surface.  You can save these areas from rubbing off by being very delicate.  The initial layers of acrylic medium or gesso act to prevent this.  Try a few transfers without the initial layers and you will understand.  You can also scrub the pigment off by scrubbing too hard.  Another problem comes from textured surfaces, where a certain area of the transfer is more worn in the paper removal process.  Once you do a few transfers, you will be able to predict problem areas.  Almost always, it is a matter of being very careful while removing the paper and knowing how to recognize the problem areas.

View Hollis Brown Thornton's FLICKR photostream

© 2008 HBT All rights reserved

Discussion: Which moleskine would you use for short trips?

Hello,

I have a moleskine question and wonder if you could help me.  I accompany my husband on most of his business trips and wonder which moleskine would be best for short trips.

I  was thinking it would be fun to use a new one for each trip but since most trips are short (3-4 days on average and maybe 5-6 if international) I wonder which one I might buy?  I would be using it to paste little momentos, tickets, photos and some writing.

Also, is there a good resource for finding nice stores in cities with stationery stores that carry moleskine?  I would like to see all the styles in person in one place!

Thank you for your help.

Debbie
________________

Join the discussion at Moleskinerie/GoogleGroups

© 2006 ABF

Minimalist sketching kit

Moleskinerie pal Katherine Tyrrell is back from her desert adventures and blogging about it:

"Technically - this was what I worked out as the minimalist sketching kit to be carried in my 'bumbag' (which I think might be known as a 'fanny pack' in the USA) - a small sketchbook Moleskine and half a dozen pencils in desert colours plus my usual pencil and pen. In reality I subsequently realised that I had the potential to use a lot of space in the topbox or saddlebag panniers - but I was trying to shed my "kitchensinkitis" reputation. Read on for why they were never used........

We headed for the Anzo-Borrego Desert through the east of San Diego county along Interstate 8 (very near the USA border with Mexico). We passed giant boulder fields of granite created by erosion due to extremes of temperature - before turning north at Ocatillo on to S2 to go north to Ocatillo Wells, then east along Highway 78 to the Salton Sea and then north to an area where the San Andreas fault is well marked...."

Visit her blog, "Travels with a Sketchbook"

Moleskinerie pal Katherine Tyrrell is back from her desert adventures and blogging about it:

"Technically - this was what I worked out as the minimalist sketching kit to be carried in my 'bumbag' (which I think might be known as a 'fanny pack' in the USA) - a small sketchbook Moleskine and half a dozen pencils in desert colours plus my usual pencil and pen. In reality I subsequently realised that I had the potential to use a lot of space in the topbox or saddlebag panniers - but I was trying to shed my "kitchensinkitis" reputation. Read on for why they were never used........

We headed for the Anzo-Borrego Desert through the east of San Diego county along Interstate 8 (very near the USA border with Mexico). We passed giant boulder fields of granite created by erosion due to extremes of temperature - before turning north at Ocatillo on to S2 to go north to Ocatillo Wells, then east along Highway 78 to the Salton Sea and then north to an area where the San Andreas fault is well marked...."

Visit her blog, "Travels with a Sketchbook"

Moleskine Detour on Italian Newspaper

Moleskinerie pal Benedetto Loffredo  alerted us to this latest online showcase of the DETOUR series.

"Just to let you know that one the biggest newspaper in Italy (the second I believe) called Repubblica on his site published a gallery of the Moleskine Detour.

The gallery is visible here."

View the First Annual Moleskinerie Exhibit.Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. We'll see you on Monday.

 

Introducing Moly-X 13

From an ever-growing cluster of artists-on-Moleskine around there world:

I'd like to share with you my Moleskine Exchange Group, Moly-X 13.
We are four talented artists living in the USA, The Netherlands, France and Spain, with four distinctive, colourful styles. We are also members of the Moleskinerie Flickr group.

Here's a link to our blog: http://moleskinex13.blogspot.com/

And here are links to our work displayed on Flickr:

Samantha: http://www.flickr.com/photos/szaza/
Anna Denise: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ann-d/
Emma: http://www.flickr.com/photos/benconservato/
Laura: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7fetiches/

Thanks so much,
Samantha Zaza

Update: The Undiscovered Letter

On April 3, 2008, the Art Directors Club hosted a diverse crowd of 400 at the ADC Gallery for its Disclosure event. A launch party for ADC Young Guns 6 as well as an exhibition of finalist work for The Undiscovered Letter, the event featured twenty-seven interpretations of the 27th letter of the alphabet created by former winners of ADC Young Guns.

Among the twenty-seven finalists whose entries and Moleskine® sketchbooks were shown, three were named Judges’ Favorites—Ivan Pols (member of the ADC Young Guns 5 class), Rei Inamoto (YG4), and Robin Bilardello (YG5)—and one was named the winner: Tiziana Haug (YG5). Haug’s 27th letter presented itself as “everything that the 26 letters fail to communicate” and took shape as a tangram-like construction made of the counterforms of each letter in the Latin alphabet. These counterforms, essentially cutouts of the negative space found in each letter (e.g., the triangle in “A”), comprised the building blocks of a new unit of communication. “If the 27th letter can be discovered, it has to be hiding somewhere,” according to Haug, and she explored both the idea of discovery and the meaning of communication with her emphasis that the 27th letter, though the result of random combinations, is personal at its core.

Design Taxi

Related links:
The Undiscovered Letter
ADC

[Thanks Chris!]

New works from David Navas

Graphic artist (and prolific Moleskine user) David Navas  has updated his blog.

David Navas has created animation and motion graphics for television channels including MTV, Mun2 and The Locomotion Channel, shown his video projections at the Winter Music Conference, Art Basel and other international events, and made music videos for the bands The Pinker Tones and Miranda.

His illustrations, comics and photographs have been published in the U.S., Mexico and Argentina.

He has a degree in fine arts from the University of Barcelona. He also studied painting and printmaking at St. Martin's School in London, and photography and animation at the IDEP and EINA in Barcelona.

His paintings and animations have been shown in Spain and the United States

Visit his website.

© 2008 DN

Portrait Inking on the OQO Model 02

Interesting post by Ken Hinckley on a pocket PC and a notebook.

"The OQO Model 02 is almost the same size as my Moleskine Pocket Sketchbook. I suspect this is no accident. To illustrate the point, I scanned them side-by-side. The OQO is slightly narrower, which is necessary to make it fit in my shirt pocket given its 1" girth. By the way, don't let this scan fool you - the screen on the OQO is gorgeous. ....

I set up a custom cover page for my OQO in InkSeine to make it feel just like a new moley fresh out of the shrink wrap. Now I feel like writing important stuff in here...."

LINK

Text and images: © 2008 KH

Man Writes Poem

by Jay Leeming

This just in a man has begun writing a poem
in a small room in Brooklyn. His curtains
are apparently blowing in the breeze. We go now
to our man Harry on the scene, what's

the story down there Harry? "Well Chuck
he has begun the second stanza and seems
to be doing fine, he's using a blue pen, most
poets these days use blue or black ink so blue

is a fine choice. His curtains are indeed blowing
in a breeze of some kind and what's more his radiator
is 'whistling' somewhat. No metaphors have been written yet,
but I'm sure he's rummaging around down there

in the tin cans of his soul and will turn up something
for us soon. Hang on—just breaking news here Chuck,
there are 'birds singing' outside his window, and a car
with a bad muffler has just gone by. Yes ... definitely

a confirmation on the singing birds." Excuse me Harry
but the poem seems to be taking on a very auditory quality
at this point wouldn't you say? "Yes Chuck, you're right,
but after years of experience I would hesitate to predict

exactly where this poem is going to go. Why I remember
being on the scene with Frost in '47, and with Stevens in '53,
and if there's one thing about poems these days it's that
hang on, something's happening here, he's just compared the curtains

to his mother, and he's described the radiator as 'Roaring deep
with the red walrus of History.' Now that's a key line,
especially appearing here, somewhat late in the poem,
when all of the similes are about to go home. In fact he seems

a bit knocked out with the effort of writing that line,
and who wouldn't be? Looks like ... yes, he's put down his pen
and has gone to brush his teeth. Back to you Chuck." Well
thanks Harry. Wow, the life of the artist. That's it for now,

but we'll keep you informed of more details as they arise

Visit his website.

Photo: P4176863 by pixellated spiff
© All rights reserved

[Thanks JC]

Inspiration: Laure Volume

Insanely beautiful doodles and sketches by French artist Laure Volume.

View her notebooks

“The Earth is Just Awesome”

Happy Earth Day everyone!

Eyes of the West Indies

Erik Gauger is back from his most recent photographic foray with stunning images - and stories from the West Indies.

"I am on a boat, tied to a dock in a bay on the tiny island of Great Guana Cay in the Northern Bahamas.  Troy Albury is untying lines and points out a Caribbean reef squid taking shelter under the dock...These animals, hued in purple and electric orange, can be difficult to spot during the day – their bodies are brilliant but translucent..."

Learn more at his website, "notes from the road"
View his Moleskine.

© 2008 EG All Rights Reserved.

7 stages of Moleskine

Stage 1: Moleskine Pre-ownership
The people who you look up to have one with them at all times. You cannot understand it. But you can't deny it looks cool. You look for alternatives. There are none. If only you had a good enough reason to buy one.

Like: I'm a ____________ (writer, artist, musician, designer, thinker, etc. ) and all ____________ have one.

Stage 2: Moleskine Selection

Hard cover or soft cover? Reporter or classic? Large or small? Dairy, which one? Cahiers? Sketchbook with thicker paper? Watercolour Notebook with even thicker paper? Choosing the right moleskine for you is a difficult process. But with time and careful practice, you will find 'the one'

Stage 3: Moleskine Community

You're now part of something bigger than yourself. A culture. A club. Your thoughts are suddenly more valuable, so are the things you say. Even your blogging has improved. When you see another moleskine owner, you give each other a nod of approval. Good thing she doesn't know that you haven't written a word yet.

Stage 4: Starting a Moleskine

You peel off the thin plastic protection film. The crackling sound fills you with excitement. You feel the oilskin cover for the first time. You snap open the elastic band a flip through the pages. your future flashes before your eyes. Your dreams waiting to burst out onto the blank pages. You bookmark an empty page, and snap the moleskine shut again. And you wait for the right moment to start.

Stage 5: Moleskine History

In the pocket of your new moleskine is a small leaflet that brings you into the world o moleskine and shares it's legendary story from it's Italian roots, the the plain notebook you now hole in your hands. You are the next part of that history.

Stage 6: Moleskine Inspiration

The pages are too perfect. It's difficult to start. "what shall I write or draw" at first there is no answer. And then, inspiration strikes. It happens more quickly for some, and slowly for others. But once inspiration strikes. You start taking notes..and you never look back.

Stage 7: Moleskine Legacy.

Finishing a moleskine feels you with a sense of satisfaction but it also makes you feel vulnerable, naked. Suddenly your ideas don't have a home. The good thing is, that wherever you are, you know you can pick up a moleskine, a notebook of the exact same quality and size from any good book or stationary store. Once you become part of the moleskine story, it's hard to imagine using any other notebook.

By Ming of the artmaker blog for CZipLee

[Thanks Alvin!]

View the First Annual Moleskinerie Exhibit.Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. We'll see you on Monday.

 

Moleskine at the London Book Fair

"...my girlfriend was asked to donate two of her Moleskine sketchbooks for display on the Moleskine
stand at the London Book Fair in Earls Court (ran from 14-16th April)

I work in the print industry and got some invites to go and visit the show..."

Snapshots of the Moleskine display at the recent London Book Fair.

By Sam Martin
More images at his FLICKR photostream

© 2008 SM

The Notebooks of Thomas Wellmann

Sketches by Thomas Wellmann

Visit his website.
© 2008 TW

DETOUR Paris : Submit your notebook!

This itinerant group exhibition displays the Moleskine notebooks designed by over 30 artists, writers, designers and illustrators of international acclaim.

After the successful experiences in London and New York, the exhibition will land at the Printemps Design boutique in the Pompidou Centre, before taking to the road again, first for Berlin, then Venice, Istanbul, etc. At every leg of the journey, it magnetizes new artists having special connections with the city in which the exhibition is taking place.

Visitors may leaf through the personal Moleskine notebooks of artists, designers, architects, illustrators and writers. Some notebooks contain detailed stories, expressing a study of contemporary design. Others are more improvised. Others are radically personal.
_____________________________________________

From 24 April to 17 May 2008, at one of the following stores in Paris:

- Librairie Flammarion in the Centre Pompidou

- Librairie la Hune, 170, Boulevard Saint-Germain

- Printemps Haussmann, 64, Boulevard Haussmann

you will find a special MyDetour collecting box, identified within the store by the "Moleskine" and "MyDetour" trade marks. Your personalized Notebook, which must have your first name and last name written in it, should be enclosed in a sealed envelope with the completed Consent Form (release of intellectual property rights, and consent to the processing of your personal data), which the Notebook's author must have signed (not a photocopy).

The Consent Form must be inserted in the expandable pocket of your Notebook, and the section "Biographical note on the Author" may be completed also.

The envelope containing the Notebook and the signed Consent Form must then be deposited in one of the collecting boxes.
Out of all the Notebooks deposited in the collecting boxes during the period 24 April to 17 May, the Jury will select ten on the basis of their aesthetic and artistic merit. These ten Notebooks will be put on public display at the next MyDetour event in Berlin.

Furthermore the Jury will choose an overall winner among the ten selected Notebooks, and Moleskine will invite its author to Berlin to attend the inauguration of the Detour exhibition there.

LINK

Download Detour_myDetour_Paris.pdf

Josh Gate's notebook

Brady MacDonald wrote:

"I was on the SciFi channel's page checking out their show called "Destination Truth".  The show's host went over his travel gear and he listed Moleskine's as a must have for using to journal with on his adventures..."



If it's good enough for Hemingway, it's good enough for me. Moleskin journals have housed ideas, thoughts, and dreams for hundreds of years. I take one brand-new Moleskin journal on every single trip I take. It can be hard to keep up, but the experience of looking back on your own words is more valuable than any photo. I use a prosaic but utterly satisfying Parker click pen that costs about $5 from Staples. I tried fancy pen after fancy pen with mixed results, but something about the smooth ink delivery and overly resistant click-top of the Parker just makes me want to write up a storm. Eat your heart out, Ernest.

LINK

Sojourner Leatherwork

I promised Christine, my wife, that if she married me, we would travel the world like in Hemingway's Moveable Feast, living cheaply in a foreign land with one express purpose: to write.  So finally we saved up for a year, quit our jobs, moved our few pieces of furniture into storage, and flew into Buenos Aires, the Paris of the South—the budget traveler's paradise where steak and wine costs a few dollars, and the

dozens of mountain ranges inspire for free.  Armed with a few Moleskines, we headed into the Argentine interior and found cafe-filled cities where we could write for hours on end everyday.

Just as I was getting into my second Moleskine, two con-men played my wife and me, and my shoulder bag was stolen, along with the freshly filled notebook.  This was a little over a month into our trip, just
when you begin to get a couple pangs of homesickness.  My writing was gone.  Depressed and fed up with noisy cities, we took a bus into the desert to a small town named Cafayate.  The town was basically a green plaza with a beautiful church on one side and cafes lining the other three.

After a day or two in town, we found a small market place nooked into one of the plaza side-streets.  Several artisans had their wares laid out, from jewelry to hand-woven baskets.  In the far corner, we saw a
stand where a man with a large mustache and sleepy country eyes was selling purses--the most interesting and gorgeous purses we'd ever seen.  The purses had geometric designs etched into the leather, but the designs were complex, like fine lace.  And I had never thought leather could have the rich yet subtle colors that these purses had.

We oggled for awhile, and then I got up the courage to ask if he had any larger items, like maybe a shoulder bag to replace my stolen one. He began telling us all about his purses, their names (each style was named after a daughter), and how he certainly could make me a bag if I wanted.  He told us to come over to his house the next day and we could talk about it.

The next day, we knocked on his door, and he brought us in and served us lunch with his family.  His name was Enrique Valdez, and later on we learned that he was a differential calculus professor that years
ago had become sick of the crime in the cities and moved his family into the country to begin a simple family business.  We agreed on some general parameters for the bag, and he asked us if we wanted to come over the next day and help him make it.  We thought he meant maybe pick out the colors.

The following day, he sat me down at his bench and handed me a hammer and a piece of leather.  Every day for the rest of our stay in Cafayate, we were with his family, and my wife and I learned everything he could teach us about his leather method, Cincelado Del Sur.  At every major city that we stopped at for the rest of our trip, we scoured the neighborhoods searching for the rare shops that sold the stamps, hand-cut railroad spikes, for this artform.  Our bags were heavy with metal spikes by the end of our trip.

As soon as we got home, we purchased what we needed to begin where we left off.  The result was Sojourner Leatherwork, our small artisan business that, in honor of my stolen treasures, specializes in
moleskine book covers.  We use exclusively the same techniques that Enrique taught us, but we've adapted cincelado to many more styles to create renassaince and medieval-feeling covers as well.  We wanted our notebook covers to reflect how unique each moleskine's contents are, so every item is entirely unique, from design to production, truly one-of-a-kind.  We're working hard at making the business a 100%
environmentally friendly and humane company (which is extremely challenging in the leather and dye industries).

My wife and I are both writers at heart.  We know the value of what goes into our notebooks, and we're trying hard to create something deserving of them.  But we also do this in memory of Enrique and his
family.  Within weeks, our shop had more tools than he could ever afford in Argentina, yet he was able to make masterpieces we can only hope to model after.  And with so little, he was still the greatest of
artists that shared the joy of his art with us, and we can only hope to do the same for you.

Our online website is www.sojournerleather.com, and we're selling primarily through Etsy at sojournerleather.etsy.com.  Check us out, give us your thoughts, and we'd love to make you a moleskine cover that's particular to your story.

About the author:

My name is Luke Thompson.  I did graduate work in philosophy, taught a little philosophy, worked in business ethics for awhile as an ethics consultant, and am now back at school working in theology.  Last year, my wife and I traveled to Argentina for three months to write.  We saved up for a year, quit our jobs, put our stuff in storage, and traveled through Argentina doing the "poor Hemingway" thing.  My wife
is a playwright, and I tried hard to write novels about philosophy and business ethics.

I brought a stack of moleskines along with me within which to write my novel.  Half way through the trip, my bag was stolen along with all my Moleskines.

At that time, we met Enrique Valdez, a master leather artisan, that took us into his home and taught us his leather craft.  When we came home, we began a leather journal company that specialized in making
leather covers for Moleskine journals.

Featured Artist: Wil Freeborn

I recently moved from Glasgow to the coast in Gourock, Scotland and started drawing on the way to my work on the train. I found myself looking forward to seeing new places that I can draw and paint and hopefully bring something of that online to show where I’ve been. Somewhere in between it all I’ve ended up seeing much more of where I live and now its something I couldn’t really imagine not doing.

Er, stylewise I’m very much on a path of finding my own at the moment. Recently I’ve been moving away from outline/contour drawing to focusing on form and colour more, going for something slightly more finished.

With materials I’m a bit sparse. Its taken me a while to find what works with me well.

Faber Castell Pitt artist pens. They use indian ink and are waterproof. I’m really enjoying using the brown sanguine ones at the moment. Its a bit of a softer line than black.

Pentell Brush pen – to add a more random rougher aspect to my drawings.
Papermate – nonstop pencil.
Mountblanc – fountain pen with noodler’s waterproof ink
A set of travel watercolours

oh, and a moleskin sketchbook. I’m hoping for Moleskine to hopefully release a version of the sketchbook that’s a little more sympathetic to watercolour.

all the best,

Wil Freeborn
www.ghostschool.co.uk

View his works on FLICKR

View the First Annual Moleskinerie Exhibit.Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. We'll see you on Monday.

moly_x_8 International Moleskine Exchange

.

Follow the adventure of this group of artists from around the world, in a Japanese fold Moleskine sketchbook exchange.

The LATEST & GREATEST group YET will conquer the world with their amazing art---or just have a HELL of a lot of FUN!!!!

Check it out

Update: What will people say about your journal when you are dead and gone?

Jesus.punx asked at Moleskinerie/FLICKR:

I was sitting at Starbucks this morning writing in my Moleskine Journal. My wife was sitting across from me. The thought hit me, "I wonder what my wife/friends will say as they reads this journal... when I am dead and gone".

Perhaps a morbid thought, however, I write really heavy, personal things in my journal. Honestly, there are things in the journal that my wife/friends are clueless about. It might scare them. If they read them now I might be divorced and friendless... lol.

Anyone else ever thought about that?

Anyone do "Secure Storage" (Safety Deposit Box or Safe) so that no one can secretly read them while you are still breathing?

Originally posted 3.3.08
........................................................................

Update 4.10.08

"For people who allow themselves to be totally and completely honest about themselves and their lives, a journal could be very hurtful or confusing to loved ones b/c, let's face it, to be truly honest w/oneself is to admit to the multifarious aspects of his character in all its humanity--both well-intentioned and malicious: his reactions to life's events, the experiences he has lived, his genuine opinions of friends, aquaintances, strangers(in all their humanity)...it requires a great deal of resolve, as well, to release one's deeply held thoughts and feelings. To release genuine honesty from one's own mind and heart--from his very being--and to share it w/others is oftentimes not only brave, but also complex, given that the repercussions can resonate infinitely.

And then sometimes a journal is simply a place to vent about a situation, confrontation, or misunderstanding which, soon after it occurs, is resolved and even forgotten. I'm reminded of the scene in Bridget Jones' Diary when, after she and Mark Darcy admit their mutual feelings, Mark finds Bridget's journal and reads her initial opinions of him. I don't want to ruin it for anyone who has yet to read the book/see the film (yes--both have been out for a long while, but some, like me, have legit. reasons for being behind in their novel-reading and movie viewing!) Those who've read/seen it know what follows..."

littlediva12

"This is the best question...Maybe by the time some of us are gone, we could have a Moleskine Cemetary..."

Pinkjasper

Join the discussion

Photo: "Pointillisme" by Karm@
© All rights reserved

Do you use both left and right sides of your moleskine?

Becka Lee:

"DO YOU USE BOTH LEFT AND RIGHT SIDES OF YOUR MOLESKINE? DO YOU USE THE FRONT AND THE BACK OF PAGES?"... I use to use every inch of mine, I'd collage on the back sides if my ink bled through. Now however I only use the right hand front sides. I think it was a chain reaction from buying the H20 color notebook ( only has one side). It's cold pressed so the lack of pages is worth it for the paper texture!"

Juan Kerr says:

I use all sides unless, like yourself, I get excessive bleed. In this case I either paste a picture or leave it as it is.

boesgaard says:

I use both sides.

Join the discussion started by Becka Lee
Moleskinerie/FLICKR

Photo: "iPod Writing" by Simon Templar_
Moleskinerie/FLICKR
© All rights reserved. Used with permission.

From 9.26.06

The Red Leather Diary Book Party & Photo Exhibition

The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal by Lily Koppel

Rescued from a Dumpster on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a discarded diary brings to life the glamorous, forgotten world of an extraordinary young woman.

For more than half a century, the red leather diary lay silent, languishing inside a steamer trunk, its worn cover crumbling into little flakes. When a cleaning sweep of a New York City apartment building brings this lost treasure to light, both the diary and its owner are given a second life.

.....................................

THE RED LEATHER DIARY publishes today (4.8.080 . Watch for Florence and me on The Today Show on April 17 at 10 am and ABC Weekend on April 19 at 6:15 am ET. Look for my Huffington Post blog about the diary's journey from languishing inside a steamer trunk in a dumpster...to book...to blog...

Lily Koppel

Visit www.redleatherdiary.com for more information. 

'skine.art is now open

Benjamin Lee wrote to announce their new notebook art site:

I would like to introduce our new site: http://www.skineart.com

Skineart.com is a website dedicated to Moleskine lovers and their art.  The site is an open-submission platform for artists to share their artwork and connect with others around the world.

Shown:
Top: Kim Coles
Bottom: Mattias Adolfsson

Handmade moleskine: a GTD planner for creative writers

For some time now I've been carrying around two Moleskine notebooks: a limited edition 2008 red diary (planner) and a large ruled notebook. The planner is for work and holds my Getting Things Done (GTD) system, including a calendar and lists. It also holds all of my meeting notes from work. The notebook is a home for all of my ideas related to characters, plots, dialogue, titles, and any rough drafts that happen to pop into my head during the day.

The problem with a two-notebook system should be obvious. I have to carry both notebooks everywhere. And if the need arises for one while I'm using the other, I have to switch between notebooks. (This can be especially uncomfortable in a business meeting, when other people might wonder, "What's so important that he has to write in a separate notebook...?") Furthermore, the need for two notebooks equates to twice the cost. After taxes, I'm probably spending $35 to suit my notebook requirements.

Some weeks ago I spent a night musing over my Moleskine mess. Turning the black ruled notebook in my hands and ultimately inspecting its constituent parts, I realized that it's a fairly simple product. There is nothing particularly outstanding or unusual about the "oilcloth" cover, the paper, or even the elastic band.

That's when I realized I could make one myself.

Mark Putnam
Learn more at his blog, "Write Damn  Now"

Our backyard friend's silhouettes

Part of my new silhouette obsession: Winsor & Newton Black Indian Ink atop delta ceramcoat atop gesso atop the pages of a Moleskine (heavy stock) sketchbook.

We have no more critters in our backyard than anyone else, but I wage that ours are the cutest, because of the quail. There's a family, about 20 of them, that run the perimeter at dusk. The California Thrasher couple have a nest somewhere in the hedge; when we lay in the sun by the bird feeder, one of them will watch us from the grapefruit tree, sometimes with a red worm in his mouth, for a half-hour or more. Hummingbirds are always fighting, and the woodpeckers hae assaulted the old olive tree on their continual hunt or boring insects.

By Stephanie
© All rights reserved

Visit her blog.

Chocolate Pencils

From Cool Hunting:

"Chocolate-Pencils is the product of a collaboration pairing Japanese architect and designer Oki Sato with patissier (and Iron Chef champion) Tsujiguchi Hironobu, the man behind Tokyo's boutique dessert shops Mont St. Claire and Le Chocolat de H. Subtle tableware effectively displays the gourmet chocolate and includes a special "pencil sharpener" for grating over a dessert. The pencils operate under the concept that shavings, which are generally regarded as a waste product, are now the main focus..."

LINK

The Notebooks of Michael Pokocky

I have been writing in journals since 1987 and before that in spiral notebooks.

I have been writing since I was 11 and am 53 now, so since I write everyday anywhere on everything that is a lot of writing.

Having kept this up without even having to try because I cannot see myself doing anything else for all these years I often wonder how many others out there are like me?

One of the most interesting things to come out of all this passion is 11 novels and thousands of poems.  What is interesting about this fact is that when the novels were written they seemed to write themselves.  I think personally it is the pen to paper connection that has been the conduit for my imagination at speeds so fast that sometimes I have to do sketches to capture the essence of an idea as it comes.  I am not an artist but a writer.  So the sketches [one I have attached] speaks for itself.

View the First Annual Moleskinerie Exhibit.Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. We'll see you on Monday.

Moleskine Notebook Icons by Jeremy Salinas

I'm a long time reader of your blog yesterday i saw the Moleskine icons you guys featured, and i was a little disappointed to hear it was only for OSX, but it got me inspired to create some of my own! I created over 20 PNG icons to be used in Windows (maybe osx?) or any dock program.

Jeremy Salinas

LINK (Look for "Download" icon)

4.8.08:

Update from Jeremy:

Even though I just released the first versions of these icons, I still wasn't happy. I've been playing with Adobe Fireworks for the last couple days and decided to remake the icons in Fireworks instead of Photoshop and am very happy with the results. If you would like to see or download version 1 of these icons you can find them in my scraps. Also now included are 128x128 ICO versions of the icons (for older operating systems such as windows 98), that can be scaled down to 16x16. Theres also about 15 more icons included in v2 than v1. Even if you downloaded the original icons I hope that you give these a look as they are much higher quality than the originals.

You can find the revised icons HERE

Classics of everyday design No 46

Charles-Antoine Bachand in Quebec sent us this link to Jonathan Glancey's article on the Guardian Unlimited Arts Blog:

"By any standards, though, and whatever their provenance, the Moleskine notebooks are an everyday design classic. They are for me, anyway, as I really do use them pretty much every single day of the year for both writing and drawing in and have done so since they appeared a decade ago. I like the compact size, decent plain paper, the rounded edges, the elastic band that holds the books together, the cloth ribbon bookmark, the expandable pocket inside for storing train tickets, business cards, and scribbled phone numbers, and, of course, I like the "moleskin" covers, made, in reality, of oilcloth-covered cardboard. And, the fact that the books stack neatly, and discreetly, on a shelf when full."

Read the full article.

[Merci Charles-Antoine!]

The Moleskale...or how to rank your addiction

Nick Cernis at "Put Things Off", the Laid Back Productivity Blog has come up with "The Moleskale", along with a comprehensive starter guide to all things Moleskine.

"There is a growing affliction amongst paper lovers: an addiction to the Moleskine brand of notebooks.

When I gave up on ta-da list and abandoned my PDA, my Moleskine filled the gap. This post is proof that a simple, quality notebook can give you just as much of a buzz as owning the latest iPhone, Palm, Blackberry or other device.

It will also introduce the Moleskale, a light-hearted tool for determining how high up the ladder your addiction to Moleskine has taken you..."

Check it out.

Discussion: Stream-of-Consciousness Experiment on Moleskine

jjtelecaster says:

I'm considering an experiment: filling a pocket moleskine (reporter square) in a limited time. I think a week at most; a weekend would be nice.

It would involve carrying the notebook and pen all the time and writing while I'm do ing other things: I mean not driving or having a shower, but I could write while watching the news, studying, playing go, having a coffee...

I'll forget about the precious paper, nice binding... just treat the notebook so as to shoot as much stuff in my mind onto paper as I can. I'm curious about how it would look like at the end.

I know this sounds " AnthonyThrollopian" (or maybe StephenKingish", but I want to give it a try.

Juan

*Out of my Mind* says:

That is an interesting concept.
I like the idea of it. Though I don't know how I would go about it.

Make sure you post again and tell us how it worked out. I would love to see some of the results in here if you are happy to share it.

I sometimes wonder what it would look like too if I just kept scribbling while doing other things. I have a large desk note pad under my keyboard at work and it has more scribbles than it has actual information on it. I guess your idea would keep the same idea more compact.

Samaoj says:

Nice idea, I would love to join you on that sometime!
And I agree, make sure you post and tell us if you try the experiment!

Join the discussion at Moleskinerie/FLICKR

Photo: "Tuesday morning, scripted" by equusignis
© All rights reserved 

Moleskine Icons by Patrick Ng

Patrick Ng's Moleskine Icons are back:)

The Moleskine icons for Mac was created in 2005 but since my service provider crashed the entire MoleskineArt.com site, I have been unable to find a free and reliable hosting for the site and its relevant contents. All updates of MoleskineArt.com are now on this VOX blog. Due to constant demand, I now put these icons back online for you to download. (For some reasons in MacOSX Jaguar, the book no longer open up when you hover a file over it.)

These icons can be used as folder, document or application icons.  Some even numbered so that you can organize your works.

Special thanks to Robert Fisher from Sketchbob for allowing me to use some of his artworks for a Robert Fisher Edition.  Enjoy!
Moleskine icons: Basic Edition
Moleskine icons: Robert Fisher Edition

More at his blog, Scription.

Moleskine City Notebooks: A Review

Dorchester, Massachusetts historian Charles Swift has posted a review of the Moleskine City Notebooks in his immaculately-kept blog, "The City Record and Boston News-Letter."

The City Notebooks attempt and succeed in bringing some of the aspects of blogging and Web 2.0 into a carry along book. The DIY aspect will work well, especially for those who do a lot of initial research before embarking on a vacation.  For those who live in cities which have their own notebooks, I see it as a useful tool, a vade mecum if you will.  I can also see loaning a City Notebook to a friend for them to take along on a trip and having them add to it as well.

One wonders if a cottage industry will develop to create content for City Notebooks. One feature I would like to see added to Moleskine City:  the ability to print out blog posts and other information in a City Notebook format.  For instance, if I were to create a tour of architectural sites in Boston with appropriate references to points on the City Notebook maps, it would be great to have other users be able to download and print that information in a format conducive to being stored in the City Notebook.

Read the full review

© 2008 CS All Rights Reserved