I did something yesterday that I haven’t done for months. Hey, you’re making up your own stories. No, I mean I made a drawing in my current Moleskine sketchbook.
What prompted it? Well, a combination of things really. But
let’s backtrack a bit and look at why I haven’t used my current Moleskine.
Since I received my first Moleskine travel sketching journal for Christmas 2019
a Moleskine – the size which is just a smidgeon smaller than A5 – has been an
essential part of my travelling equipment. That is, until I bought a Seawhite
A5 travel sketching journal earlier this year. Since then this Seawhite has
gone everywhere with me. . . and the
Moleskine hasn’t.
I’ve always had a love of stationery. I will gladly browse
through an office supplies outlet with the same kind of satisfaction that some
of the members of my family experience in bag shops and shoe shops. My son in
law Dan is the same when it comes to stationery. Since embracing my love of art
and sketching in particular 9 years ago I’ve become more and more interested in
the materials out there, and I love reading comparative reviews on artist’s and
sketcher’s blogs. In the first half of this year I kept finding reviews of
Seawhite of Brighton’s A5 travel sketching journals and the vast majority of
the reviewers preferred the Seawhite to the Moleskine. So I bought a Seawhite,
and took it with me on a visit to my mother in Worthing for a few days. And I
have to say that I enjoyed using it a lot, and have been using it as my main
travel journal since. And that has included my mega trip to Dublin and New
York. Which doesn’t mean that I don’t like the Moleskine any more. It’s just
that at the moment, I like the Seawhite just that little bit more.
You know, I’ve read a lot of reviews recently and it seems
to me that Moleskine don’t get a lot of love from most reviewers. It’s all a
matter of personal preference and choice. I personally think there’s not a huge
amount in it between the Moleskine and the Seawhite. I like the way that the
Seawhite takes colour and think it’s just a little better and more vibrant than
the Moleskine. I also like that the Seawhite is a true A5- I like that it’s
just that tiny bit wider. I will confess to being something of a cheapskate, so
I’m also attracted to the Seawhite for being cheaper to buy than the Moleskine.
I don’t begrudge a company for charging more for a higher quality product, but
I don’t think that a Moleskine, good as it is, is better than the cheaper
Seawhite, having used the Seawhite consistently for a couple of months now. You
kind of feel that Moleskine are expecting you to pay extra just for their brand
name which rankles a little with me if I’m honest.
Okay, so coming towards the point, I recently read a thought-provoking
post about attitudes towards sketchbooks, where the writer, a well known art
blogger, explained how he had carried through from his childhood an attitude
that you should only use your nicest, most expensive sketchbooks for your best
work, whereas every day stuff could be done on any old rubbish paper. In
practice this meant that he has stacks of unused quality sketchbooks because he
has been saving for his best work. Look, he said it a lot better and made the
ridiculous nature of the situation stand out a bit better, but you get the
point. And I thought – blimey, that’s me.
Well, to an extent, anyway. The fact is that I’d taken my
Moleskine out of my travel bag when the Seawhite became a permanent fixture and
left it on my desk. -It’s too good to use for everyday stuff – being my
attitude. Now the silly thing about this is that I’m not like this about
everything.
Take ballpoint pens, for instance. Since I was a kid, in
fact before I got to secondary school (I guess the US equivalent to a UK
secondary school would be a junior high school) my pen of choice was a Parker
pen. The cheapest price for one of these today seems to be £5.80 - about 7.62 USD today. That’s more than what you’d pay for 20 bic biros. The bics don’t last as long, but
there you go. So financially it didn’t – and doesn’t – make sense to always use
a Parker. But that’s beside the point. I LIKE writing with a parker. The design
is a classic, and every time I have to buy a new pen it’s like a little present
to myself. It writes more smoothly than a bic – not necessarily more than 20 times more
smoothly. Using one makes writing a more pleasurable experience than writing
with a bic.
So yesterday I thought – fair point. If it’s fine to use a
better, more expensive pen because it makes even everyday writing more
pleasurable, then it’s fine to use a better, more expensive sketchbook to make
even everyday drawing a more pleasurable experience. If you’ve followed the
blog at all for the last couple of years you might remember how I have a huge
admiration for the work of Victorian artist and illustrator John Tenniel, which
led me to making ink copies of all of his original illustrations to Lewis
Carroll’s Alice books. Well, looking over some old blog pages yesterday I came
upon the page dedicated to Alice illustrations. In particular those of one of
the later illustrators of the books whose work I love, Mervyn Peake. I’ve
sketched about 8 of them up to this point. Yesterday, having painted a birthday
card for my wife (birthday at the weekend) I wasn’t up for any particularly
heavy or detailed sketching I though – I know – I’ll do another Peake copy, of
one of the simpler illustrations. – So it was that I grabbed the Moleskine, and
made the sketch. Bloody enjoyed it too, if truth be told. Here’s the two for
comparison.
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| Mine |
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| Comparison |
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