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Saturday, November 7, 2009

Moleskine Art

Found this while looking for Moleskine vidoes. Hope you like it.
Have a great weekend.

FerFAL


4 comments:

Ryan said...

I like those little notebooks. They are very minimalist and sort of classy looking. I have a big green hardback book I keep work stuff in but one of those little moleskins is in my jacket pocket.

Don Williams said...

1) While the idea of US President Ronald Reagan that wealth "trickles down" to poor was garbage, it is true that there are many pleasurable things out there that cost very little.

What many Americans are poor in is TIME -- they work 50 to 60 hours work weeks just to stay employed, hoping for promotion. As a result, they are fleeced of their earning by merchants.

Re Moleskine, for example, one of the things one can do is make watercolors of plants as one hikes in the parks and National Forests or merely walks in the cities. Two hundred years ago, English aristocrats on the Grand Tour created a school of landscape painting as they recorded Italian scenery in their journals with watercolour.

Today, Art supply companies --even on the Internet -- sell such items as Winsor and Newton's Bijou Box. A portable watercolor kit that can be carried in your pocket along with a Moleskine. See http://www.fineartstore.com/Catalog/tabid/365/List/1/CategoryID/18364/Level/a/Default.aspx?SortField=UnitCost%2cUnitCost

What is hilarious is Winsor and Newton's price: $100. Being made of metal, the box will eventually rust from the water added to make paint, in which case it will be time to cough up another $100.

A number of people have pointed out that you can make the same kit out of the metal box that comes with a $2 purchase of Altoids' breath mints. See http://www.oaktrees.org/blog/archives/2481 and clink on each link to see the designs.

Don Williams said...

1) Here are some suggestions on supplies,etc for making a watercolor journal: http://www.ehow.com/how_4922127_keep-watercolor-journal.html

2) The paper in the regular Moleskine is kinda thin for watercolor --i.e, it kinkles from the water. This site tells how to make a Moleskine like journal out of higher quality art paper:

http://www.trumpetvine.com/sketchblog/moleskine-reloaded/


(Note, however, that such a journal will have many fewer pages because of the thickness of watercolor weight paper.)

3) Of course, you could always just buy a disposable, portable camera that lets you download pictures onto your computer. :)

FerFAL said...

Hey Don, thanks man, cool link.
I've been doing my own pocket notebooks for that same reason, poor paper. Still, moleskine has a line called Sketching that has much nicer paper.
Anyway, my favorite notebooks are the ones I make myself: My process is a bit more simple than the one you posted, but I also make my own cover with waxed canvas, so its entirely hand crafted and the result is both cool and functional, not to mention as personal as it could get.
I'll post a little guide on how to make these later this week.

FerFAL