Editor’s
Note (The Sketches & Doodles Issue)
A
while ago we posted a very interesting piece of work on our Facebook Fan Page
that stimulated a lot of talk about sketching and doodling. The piece itself
was done by an artist we have featured in this month’s issue, an artist with a
very unique and interesting style - Andrea Joseph. Her drawing of two converse
sneakers amongst a million doodles and sketches evoked in us a feeling of
longing for the good old days, when digital drawing was but a distant dream. It
reminded us that even in this day and age, creating something with your own
bare hands without the help of technology truly is gratifying.
And
so the “sketch and doodle” issue was born! This month we have collected an
amazing array of work by artists who still use pen and paper (okay, so maybe
it’s not always a pen they use, but you get the drift). There are sketches and
doodles of all sorts, with themes from life drawing to the completely abstract.
The artists we have chosen to interview all have their own little twist on how
they create their masterpieces and we think you’ll be very impressed with their
efforts.
A
recurring tool we’ve seen used by many people whose work we’ve showcased in
this issue seems to be the Moleskine notebook, something we simply had to find
out more about. If you’ve ever bought one of the legendary Moleskines you will
have received a little history pamphlet with it that is rather inspirational.
To quickly summarise, Moleskine is the celebrated notebook used by European
artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gough to Picasso,
from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin. A simple
black rectangle with rounded corners, an elastic page-holder, and an internal
expandable pocket: a nameless object with a spare perfection all its own,
produced for over a century by a small French bookbinder that supplied the
stationery shops of Paris, where the artistic and literary avant-gardes of the world browsed
and bought them. A trusted and handy travel companion, the notebook held
invaluable sketches, notes, stories, and ideas that would one day become famous
paintings or the pages of beloved books. In the mid-1980s, these notebooks
became increasingly scarce, and then vanished entirely. In his book The
Songlines Chatwin tells the story of the little black notebook: in 1986,
the manufacturer, a small family-owned company in the French city of Tours,
went out of business. "Le vrai moleskine n'est plus," are the
lapidary words he puts into the mouth of the owner of the stationery shop in
the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie, where he usually purchased
his notebooks. Chatwin set about buying up all the notebooks that he could find
before his departure for Australia, but there were still not enough. In 1997, a
small Milanese publisher brought the legendary notebook back to life, and
selected this name with a literary pedigree to revive an extraordinary
tradition. Following in Chatwin's footsteps, Moleskine notebooks have resumed
their travels, providing an indispensable complement to the new and portable
technology of today. Capturing reality in movement, glimpsing and recording
details, inscribing the unique nature of experience on paper: Moleskine
notebook is a battery that stores ideas and feelings, releasing its energy over
time.
Not long ago, something called the Moleskine
Exchange began. It’s a project where several artists, each with their own
Moleskine notebook, draw something on two facing pages of their book. They then
send their book onto the next artist (a predetermined list is established in
advance) and receive a book from another artist. They draw something on two
facing pages and send the book onwards. This process is repeated until the
artist receives his/her original Moleskine notebook. Talk about inspiration and
history in the making! Many Moleskine Exchange programs are being conducted as
I write this note and I urge you to begin your own, or join one. We’re thinking
about starting a b* creative Moleskine exchange very soon.
So
to sum up – this month is all about natural! It’s about loosening your wrists
and letting your imagination flow. It’s about not worrying if the lines are
correct and if the colours match. It’s about putting pen to paper even if your
concentrating on something else (my personal favourite time to doodle is when
I’m talking on the phone). You’ll notice our illustrator Robin Va’auli really
went out of his way this month, not only to sketch our cover, but to draw each
one of us. How awesome!
So
until next time dear friends and readers don’t forget to: Imagine. Believe.
Create. Achieve.
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