Traveling Watercolor Moleskine

I was traveling with my new watercolor moleskine and as many of us I had waiting time in the terminal. So out came the moleskine and this is what happened. I was struck by the bright yellow handsets on the telephone kiosk. They seemed to jump out at me - so I tried to capture some of that.

The style of my moleskine entries has been, I must confess, highly influenced by the marvelous posts on Karen Blados' Sketch Blog. Karen is a very talented and imaginative artist. Stop by and take a look at her site.

A Day Remembered in my Moleskine

It was just a clogged drain...easy to fix..right? Well it turned into an all day project. One of those where each step you take you find two more thinks to fix.

Moleskine Records the Forgotten

As we headed up the road from Florida we suddenly became aware that we had forgotten a couple of items. We keep saying that we should make a checklist for departure - who makes checklist!!

From my Old Molskine

Visiting my relatives in Boca Raton, FL I sketched the view from the patio. I was amazed at the number of Cable lines radiating from this one pole.

More From My Molskine

This was an entry after my external hard drive crashed. I was able to salvage most of the data but not all. It goes to show that even external backups to magnetic media are also subject to the same problems of internal hard drives.
The other page is another limp attempt at starting to be more active in journaling. That was a while back and it didn't last long.

What's in My Moleskine Cont'd

This entry in my moleskine was an experiment with some colored pens. I didn't get the result I wanted but I had fun trying.

What's in My Moleskine

Once again life had intervened in my postings. I have decided to put some posts up that recap 2007 and prove that I have still been sketching - even if I haven't posted much. Often I would just doodle in a spiral bound sketch book - and I do mean doodle meaningless scribbles. The next few posts will chronicle some entries into my moleskine.

These were some interesting bookcases - the stackable lawyer bookcases - I saw at a big antique flea market.

Wating Room Art

I am getting ready to fly off to Albuquerque tomorrow and thought I might post a few waiting room sketches - I am sure I will have more waiting room art to add when I get back. This first sketch is one I did waiting for my bride at the doctors office. The plant is a small thing sitting on a plant stand table - and it is plastic!


This next one is done while waiting for my Jeep to be inspected at the Tire Shop. I think the next time I will try the tire rack - that should be interesting.

This drawing was done while waiting for my turn in the imaging machine during my last semi-annual stress test.

Back in a couple of weeks.

More Moleskine Suff

Here are a few pages from my mole. Over the past year I have tried lots of different things to draw with and on. One of the tools I found was the Lamy Safari fountain pen. Several other folks have raved about this pen and I decided to give one a try (since they are not expensive). I really like the feel of the pen. It is light and comfortable - it also comes in several colors and nib sizes. I tend to like an extra fine nib but wanted to try a medium and broad as well. So I got one of each. I found that the EF nib was not as fine as my Rotring EF pens (Artpen and fountain) and that all the pens EF, M, and B tended to scratch or drag on the paper. With my Rotring the writing and drawing is very smooth no mater how I hold the pen. I can even use the nib upside down and get a really fine line. With the Lamy if I try that the pen skips or doesn't have any ink flow at all. I do use the Lamy a lot though so I tried to hone the nib a little using the stone and leather strop that came with the Rotring caligraphy set I got my wife for Christmas a year ago. It helped some - will give it another go to see if I can get rid of some more of the drag because it is a pretty reliable and comfortable pen.

Pretty soon it will be time start my chili pepper seedlings for this years crop of peppers. This mole entry is a sketch of last years batch.


I saw a couple of plan perspective drawings done in a molekine a couple of months ago and thought I might try a Danny Gregory exercise and draw the floor plan of the appartment I lived in in Key West many years ago.



Last June our 19 year old cat, Emma, passed away. In September we found two new kittens at the local shelter and brought them home. This is one of their faovirite play grounds - the rest of the house is also their playground.



I got interested in watercolor pencils and picked up a few to experiment with. I did a couple test patches in my mole to see what they looked like. These pages had been pre-treated with a thin coat of white absorbent ground. I am waiting on a copy of Cathy Johnson's book 'Watercolor Pencil Magic' to see what nifty things she can teach me about these.

Traveling Moleskine

My Moleskine is always with me - even if I don't often make an entry. I thought I might add a couple of the pages from my old and tattered Mole. This was at one of last seasons Nationals games.I am on the road a lot and I thought I would include this on of my breakfast. I also made a promise to make more marks in my Mole - something I have yet to follow through with.


This is another road trip. I usually wake up to Robin & Company on CNN Headline News. Must appologize for the likeness of Robin - it doesn't do her justice.


I have been experimenting with watercolor in my Mole and have found that I get the best results when I prepare the page with an absorbent ground. I use a thin coating and it seems to allow the watercolor to brush on evenly instead of beading up the way it does on plain Mole sketchbook pages. I will be trying out the new watercolor moleskine next.

Sigh. . . Time to Take Down the Decorations

It's that time again. Time to take down the Christmas decorations and put them away for another year. I sat having my coffee and realized that I had not skecthed any of the decorations for EDM # 46 so I grabbed my moleskine and my artpen and went to work.

After I finished taking all the decorations down and sat recovering from the effort I started to add in some color. I am pleased with the result because it brings back the beauty of our Christmas each time I look at it.

Quick Sketch . . .

Well, depending on the size of your gas tank you might have time to whip out the ol' moleskine and skecth the gas pump while it pumps away. I tried and got this far.



Would like to have put in a little more detail but didn't have time. Should do this more often and maybe draw someone pumping gas the next time.

Catching up a little

I have finally scanned some of the sketches I did last month on a trip to Orlando, FL. These were my first sketches in many years...so I will also include a couple flash backs as well. The first is a quick ink sketch I drew while waiting for a colleague to join me for breakfast. I was sitting in the atrium of the hotel and I looked up to see 14 floors of balconies that facinated me...


I drew this in my Moleskine sketch book and added some watercolor afterwards. I was trying to capture a wash like affect sort of like this sketch I did in highschool...


Another sketch here of the stopwatch on the table in the restaurant where we had lunch...


Again this was done in my Moleskine adding watercolor afterwards...


Right now I have just returned from a few days down at the Folly (what we affectionately call our weekend/retirement place). It is located in a small town on the Potomac River. It has been pretty well forgotten for the last 50 years. I had a little time to sketch and decided to try one of the EDM(#3) chalenges to draw a wallet, purse, or bag.


Later this weekend I will try to get some of the other sketches posted as well.