Saturday, January 12, 2019

The new Moleskine XL

Not too long ago I finished my Moleskine XL Squared notebook/sketchbook (you can see the last pages and a little video in this previous post). I worked in it for over two years and I enjoyed it enough to want another one. This time I decided to go with the cahier style notebooks and bought a set of three in the XL size, because I like the big pages.

Just like the previous book I intend to fill them with patterns, mosaics and grid drawings in felt tip pen. The only difference will be that I work on both sides of a spread instead of just on the right side. To keep the pages from bleeding into each other I skip every other spread. The paper of Moleskines regular notebooks isn't all that great, but it's wonderfully smooth to work on with my markers, so I make do.

Here are the first four spreads I did in this new Moleskine XL:





I enjoy using the same colour combination on both sides of a spread, but doing different things with them. It makes the pages both separate and yet fit together.

These spreads represent hours of work. In fact the last one pretty much covers an entire audio book worth of time. That's almost eight hours in this case! These patterns are always a good way to train the patience muscle and also a good way to catch up on podcasts, and now also to listen to audio books (which is a new thing for me).

Patterns, grids and mosaics keep being the most satisfying thing for me to do art wise. When I started them I never thought I would still love them as much years later, but I just keep loving them more and more.

Hope you are finding something you love so much you cannot get enough of it and wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day.