Vanuatu: Sketchbook

My poor maltreated Moleskine. It is held together with duct tape now (on the inside, so I can’t pass it off as industrial punk) and has been soggy and dirty and flecked with volcanic ash and had a near miss in the Port in Port Vila.

But it survived and the picture pages are scanned and up as a set on Flickr: Vanuatu 2008 Moleskine.

This sketchbook has fewer receipts and brochures and tickets than the American one (although there are one or two pages of receipts and boarding passes I didn’t scan in), and is better scanned and - in the drawings at least - more colourful due to my acquisition of more markers. My handbag was (is) full of markers (and pencils, erasers, sharpeners, gel pens, blending pencils, etc).

But next time I will carry the book in a ziplock bag. Just in case.

—–

Now, so far I only have one question to answer about Vanuatu, and my answer is: no, to the best of my knowledge there are no longer cannibals in Vanuatu; that doesn’t stop the tourist trade trading on that piece of history; and from time to time startled linguists have been ’discovered’ by anthropologists searching for cannibal tribes.

Any other questions?

 

 

Red Islands

My first entry for moly_x_32 was featured on Moleskinerie!

This is a cross-post from moly_x_portrait1. To see larger versions/detail, click on the image to go to its Flickr page and then click on “all sizes” above the picture.

My entry in Jan’s moleskine - Jan right side up and me up side down. I continued some of the patterns and words from her entry.

The full spread to-date.

My contribution to the mix & match sign-in page.

 

Sleeping Beauties

Cross-post from moly_x_32:

Queenslander houses, with their high stumps, polished floors, deep verandas and wooden lace, are not designed to keep heat in. They are freezing in winter (they also have many of the features of a wildlife corridor, but that’s another story), and so instead of working at one of my desks (one of which is in the annex and so basically a cold-room) I did my first entry on the coffee table while sitting crosslegged on the floor in front of Inspector Rex.

Here is my coffee table and floor:

This is the full spread of my first entry, featuring bougainvillea, veranda railings and flowery prose:

And a detail of the pop-up (with real Queenslander architecture in the background - those are coloured glass windows looking over the back yard):

And some real bougainvillea from my parents’ yard:

All pictures are on Flickr, so you can click through and click on “all sizes” above the picture if you want a close-up.

ETA: It is posted and on its way to Robin. I didn’t take a photo, but the sign-in page is just the inside front cover - draw a little thing (I did a flower) and put your name and general location. I also put a flower postage stamp on the front cover, so if you have any stamps or stickers and this book comes through your hand, feel free to add them! And there are some moo cards in the back pocket for those what wants one.

 

What was organised - Part 4 of my travels with a sketchbook

In the grand tradition of not making up my mind until the last possible moment (as usual, some time after take-off) I browsed through travel journals in newsagencies and online trying to determine an optimum combination of categories - should I include expenditure? an itinerary? what about an address book? How much space should be allotted for each day? How did artists organise their travel sketchbooks, if at all? Were journal, diary and sketchbook incompatible?

I settled on the winning combination on the flight over: The debden notebook would retain its usual structure - infodump with index. I put all postcard addresses in there (indexed under “contacts”). Otherwise, it was used for directions, reminders and a futuristic science fiction story involving cryogenic sleep and prosthetic limbs and lawyers on motorcycles and mafia connections and the rule of law (the true hero) and consisting only of the bits in between the action.

The sketchbook was divided into two sections.

Section one was a planner: each page featured four hand-drawn boxes with the date (a sticker), month and day of the week. In these I jotted down a very minimal account of the day, and only missed the last four or so. For a random example, 17 October - Wednesday reads:

Up 9-ish.
Watched part of the Waltons and Little House (guest starring a very young James Cromwell)
Breakfast @ Free Port (”Good food, legal drinks”): cinnamon scrolls.
To North East to wait for Martha to get off work.
Lunch at Bova’s.
Back to Martha’s to drop off a sub for Nick.
Through Eyrie to Presque Isle.
Drove around Presque Isle, monument, lighthouses.
Stopped at visitor centre.
Back to Martha’s for pie. Spoke to C.O. on phone.
Back to farm.
Downloaded photos. Kathy & Mommy organised for me to go to Pittsburgh.

Section two was everything else (I micromanage content, as you can see). The date headers went in as each day came along. I sketched as I could through the day, wrote only a little, and at the end of the day added in any cartoons or drawings (often from photos on my camera or phone) or bits-and-pieces that remained.

I had an idea that if I wanted a list of expenditures I could start from the back, or keep lists of Things to Eat on the index cards in the back pocket, but none of these were necessary.

• Part 1: What was lugged.
• Part 2: What was used.
• Part 3: What was stuck.
• Part 4: You Are Here.
• Part 5: What was learned.

And the journal itself is up as a set on Flickr: USA 2007 Moleskine.

 

What was stuck - Part 3 of my travels with a sketchbook

I did not want to repeat the pattern of previous holidays which resulted in collections (envelopes, packages, bags, boxes) of papers, brochures, tickets, advertisements, envelopes, squashed pennies, packaging, cards and labels.

This time, I implemented a policy I referred to as Cut Things Out and Stick Them In.

Every night, before bed, I had to cut up the papers collected through the day, cut them up, stick the relevant sections into my sketchbook-journal and Throw The Rest Away.

There were a few late nights, but it was not generally an onerous task and tiredness could make me brutally selective. As I carted the glue stick with me, dead time in airports (”the planes in America have never been so safe or so late”) and planes and trains or while other people were in bed could be used productively.

My bags were lighter, there were no folders to sort or store when I arrived home, and I don’t regret throwing out anything I did.

Best of all, the journal was always up to date. I could not show photographs to people, but I could show them scraps and sketches, and when I arrived home, the journal was almost complete: pictures drawn, scraps stuck in, observations made at the time. All that remained was to add in the few pieces that had fallen through the cracks and into the back pocket of the sketchbook: a menu, some currency, a greeting card.

Scraps, however, were not the only things that were stuck in. Before I left, I treated myself to one of the unsung treasures of the stationer’s: numbered stickers. I took a package of black-on-white to label the days in the planner at the start of my sketchbook, and white-on-black to label each day as I progressed through the sketchbook. It was unnecessary but fun, with some of the mild excitement of an advent calendar, and knowing that as each day was sketched and written and pasted, I could mark it off and start a new one with a fresh new sticker.

The sketchbook is here: USA 2007 Moleskine.

Other parts:

• Part 1: What was lugged.
  Part 2: What was used.
• Part 3: This is it.
• Part 4: What was organised.
• Part 5: What was learned.

 

What was used - Part 2 of my travels with a sketchbook

I divided the tools I took into two bags: a large ziplock bag in my checked luggage with scissors, brushes, watercolours and so forth; and a smaller bag in my handbag with markers, prismacolors, unipins and mechanical pencil. The glue stick travelled between this smaller bag and my clear-onboard-toiletries-and-liquids-for-inspection bag according to whether or not we were airborne.

And in the end I used only:

• the monochrome markers
• the prismacolour pencils
• the mechanical pencil
• stickers
• glue stick and
• scissors.

The first two were unexpected. I have almost always drawn in pencil or pen. Markers were still unfamiliar territory, unwieldy and permanent and blending poorly. I disliked coloured pencils - using them, what they could and couldn’t do, what art in coloured pencil looked like.

They were, however, the most travel-friendly: light, portable, not messy, quick to use, bold, handy. Both travel in my handbag still and if I am again travelling light, I might leave behind all the excess security blanket of other media.

The last two were used for cutting things up and sticking things in, of which more anon.

The sketchbook is here: USA 2007 Moleskine.

Part 1 is here: What was lugged.
To come:

• Part 3: What was stuck.
• Part 4: What was organised.
• Part 5: What was learned.

 

What was Lugged - Part 1 of my travels with a sketchbook

I knew, when I went to America last October, that I wanted to draw while I was there (I draw every day) and, if possible, to keep a sketch-journal. I’d done this once before, in Melbourne when /Karen/ and I went to Continuum and met Neil Gaiman and Robin Hobb and I had been putting it off doing it again until an occasion justifying the purchase of a Moleskine sketchbook (that first was a present from Deb).

This is what I generally keep in my handbag: Debden notebook (indexed), Moleskine sketchbook, diary, another sketchbook and notebook if I’m in transition, an exercise book if I’m in the middle of a first draft, scratch paper with drawings on the back which I have forgotten to take out and file, a packet of monochrome Pitt markers, a packet of earth tone Pitt markers (new arrival), a pencil box with Prismacolors and a mechanical pencil, a pencil sharpener with shaving catcher. That’s my everyday handbag. If I’m going somewhere art-related after work, I may take another bag with charcoal and pastel pencils, kneadable eraser, water colour pencils, travel watercolours and a larger sketchbook. If I’m going home for the weekend, there will also be at least a document box of paints, paint brush roll, rubber stamp blanks, corner cutter, lino carving tools, stamp pads, dip pen, bottles of ink, more sketchbooks, some pads of paper, watercolour postcards, canvas boards, glue, scissors, fancy paper, scrapbook, ruler, etc.

All this for someone who does most of her drawings in biro on memo pad.

Since I was planning to travel relatively lightly (interesting fact: my total luggage weighed in less than the change in my weight in the last two years) it was impractical to pack on the usual scale.

In the end, I took advantage of large ziplock bags and packed: Unipin pens, Pitt markers, glue stick, scissors, Prismacolour pencils, watercolour pencils, a few inexpensive paintbrushes, numbered stickers, blank labels and index cards and a mechanical pencil.

I agonised over the sketchbook/notebook/diary/travel journal situation until the night before we left, and settled on an A5 moleskine sketchbook for everything related to the trip and my usual debden notebook for everything else (ideas, fiction, notes, transient stuff), with a moleskine cahier for backup (not needed).

Coming Soon:

• Part 2: What was used.
• Part 3: What was stuck.
• Part 4: What was organised.
• Part 5: What was learned.

If you can’t wait to see how it ends, the journal is up as a set on Flickr: USA 2007 Moleskine.

 

Illustration Friday: Little Things

Walking home from Paddington, I found a cicada’s shell, translucent and crispy, and carried it home to study. I also found a cricket with lovely wings on the kitchen window sill, and carried it away to my desk as well, but it wasn’t quite dead because it crept away under its own steam and I haven’t been able to find it.

For this week’s Illustration Friday theme: Little Things.

 

Superstition

This week’s Illustration Friday theme is “Superstition”, so I began a study for the cover of a hypothetical graphic novel of The Crucible. It started as business card sketches, but this is a study executed in pencil and marker in my Moleskine. I’m not sure the costume is from the right era, but I am fond of the poppet and may make one.

This is a thumbnail image of the projected cover (the reason for the flared skirt). I’d like to try finishing this off, some day, with a woodcut effect and era-appropriate lettering.

 

Soldiery

When I was small and we lived for a few years in Brisbane, my father showed me how these flowers looked like little soldiers, and how you could remove their helmet and coat and tunic and leave them cold and bare in their long pale underwear.

Most of the rest of the world knows them only in troops, the bunched flowers of the Cockspur Coral tree - Erythrina crista-galli. I found that out this week.

I collected this one from the bitumen on my street. The wriggly pattern is probably bug damage, from its shape.

Drawn in my pocket Moleskine sketchbook with Faber Castel manga markers.

I let this one decay for a day on my desk. He turned from brilliant scarlet to being shot through with purples and greens.

Drawn in my pocket Moleskine sketchbook with my beloved Prismacolours (beloved at least among coloured pencils).

(So you see, I am conquering my resistance to using a Moleskine on other than special occasions).