Moleskine de Voyage #3

Like bubbles in a champagne glass, lovely old things keep surfacing from the closet I'm still cleaning out. Stacks of sketchbooks, old macaron wrappers and now my travel Moleskines. I never leave home without a Mole. It's my religion. It's my addiction. Is there even a choice in the matter?

I love the Moleskines with the graph paper. I'm always hoping/wishing those perpendicular lines will get my truly illegible handwriting/scrawl to straighten up. Man! even I can't read this. It's one thing when you scribble down an idea in the dark, but we're talking full daylight here!

I also love the way the thin graph paper takes watercolor too -- kind of cheesy but it works for me...

Is there a better friend to take with you to a museum ? Moleskines legitimize you while you sketch in front of a Renaissance masterpiece. I did these doodles at the La Nature Morta Italiano exhibit at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, 2003.

Someone brought in the catalog. He'd spent the entire summer in Tuscany. I freaked, ran out and got on a plane and got over there PDQ. And it was worth it. The most excessive, robust, rich still life painting you can imagine with Caravaggio as the highpoint.

Does anyone else cover their Moles with stickers? I've got "sticker madness". I can't stand a naked Moleskine. And I have a special passion for those French chocolatiers/pâtisserie stickers they paste down on anything you buy. They are complètement fou (nuts) with stickers too.

There's always an array of sizes and shapes. I wish I knew the French word for sticker. Merci Jennc informed me that the word is "Autocollants"

Malheuresment, these stickers do not have the same shelflife as the Moleskine Notebook. They have a habit of curling up and falling off eventually. I wonder if my affection for these stickers is the same as travelers who pasted stickers all over their trunks and luggage? My Mole is my "trunk" full of travel souvenirs...

Rendez-vous du carnet de voyage, Clermont-Ferrand

 

Best laid plans etc. You think you’ve figured out all the angles

I even did a test run yesterday to Paris-Bercy station on ligne 14, the fastest metro in Paris, because last time I went in 2019 to Rendez-vous du carnet de voyage in Clermont-Ferrand I got awfully lost in the pitch dark finding the station…the train always departs at 6:57 am (a 4 hour ride to the l’Auvergne). You miss it, you’re toast.

Gillot’s Watercolor Medium

Carnet de voyage, I found these while cleaning out my closet. Before there were Moleskine notebooks in my life, I used to paint in travel sketchbooks. Like anything I tackle, I go overboard. I went to The Center For Book Arts on 28 West 27th Street to learn how to make these books myself and I made tons of them.
Google carnet de voyage and you get 38,200 images to pour over. But wait till after you read this post PULEEZE! Maybe I'll become the 38,201 image...qui sait?

I was already making my own watercolor paints so it was a natural. I work part-time at a pigment shop, but it took a while to get down to producing the first pans.
To make paint you need a binder - basically a glue that will make the dry pigment stick to your surface. The then-manager nudged me on, saying, "It's just like making pound cake - a pound of sugar, a pound of flour, a pound of butter etc and mix.."

Making oil paints is pretty straightforward, like pound cake, you add dry pigment (your flour) + Linseed oil (your wet ingredients) and mix. Watercolors are another matter. Most art technique books tell you to just go out to the art store and forgeddaboutit 

After Corot in Italy, watercolor, 4 1/2 x 6 1/2 "

BTW most of my hand-made sketchbooks are filled with Tuscan landscapes - an obsession at that time. I worked really small for years - 4 1/2" x 6 1/2" and smaller. Moving up to 6" x 8 1/2" was a BIG step. I even convinced Travel Roads to give me a 3-week artist residency in Poppi (not far from Arezzo) with these little watercolors.

Owl's Head, Maine, watercolor, 4 1/2 x 6 1/2"

Back to making paint - I took myself off to London to an instructor from the Prince Charles' Drawing School and we spent a morning testing different formulas and making test pans. 5 days later the pans were still wet = NOT GOOD.

At home I played around with glycerine + honey + Ox Gall...yes you can almost eat your paints, BUT DON'T! Ralph Mayer say's in a pinch you can use GUM DROPS if you have no glycerine around. Finally I got it right and began to "cook up" pans and pans of lovely, rich, granular paint and it's been nonstop ever since.

Et voila! 

Eurostar Window Scene, watercolor, 4 1/2 x 6 1/2"

The French (see this IS a French-related post after all) have been way ahead of us in the travel sketchbook arena, publishing piles of facsimile carnet de voyage books. I was going to do a MACARON post today, but I was not happy with my mac watercolor, so it will just have to wait. Hang in there macaron fans !

17e Rendez-Vous du Carnet de Voyage, Clermont-Ferrand

Saturday-Sunday I went to the annual Rendez-Vous du Carnet Voyage in Clermont-Ferrand.

Its a gathering of travel sketchbook artists on 3 floors at the Polydome. I became obsessed with all the tiny watercolor paintboxes everyone was using. Why do I need such a big paintbox?

Mind you the artwork on display was stupendous - here giancarlo de Petris .

Lapin is a big name in the sketchbook world. Part of his display showed stacks and stacks of his sketchbooks. He lives in Spain but travels constantly sketching.

Emdé is another star. They are called 'carnettistes'. Carnet means small note book. Carnet du voyage = travel note book.

French Sophie Binder lives in St.Louis. At a certain point she gave up her job, packed her paints, sketchbook, bike and set out for 14 months traveling and sketching the world.

The end result. Her gorgeous book, 'The world, Two Wheels and a Sketchbook.

One of Sophie's watercolors.

Marielle Durand recently went to. New York to draw.

I love these. Check out her instagram @idrawamerica

There were classes given as well. Stephan Faravelli is a drawing wizard.

His exquisite work...

Most of the artists had tons of sketchbooks you could browse through. These people don't sleep at night. They are drawing.

A chain of French spas, Route des villes d'Eaux commissioned 12 sketchbook artists to come stay for a week and draw their immpressions. C'est la vie!

You could browse the artist's sketchbooks.

You could also buy a gazillion sketchbooks of the artists onhand. Were there 60-70 artists onsite? I did not come home empty-handed.

I managed to get into Clermont-Ferrand in the evening to see the famous black cathedral made of volcanic rock. Then paint a little in my room at 4:00 am in the morning.

I left Rendez-Vous du carnet de voyage exhausted, bug-eyed and totally inspired. After sleeping in yesterday, today I tackled painting those mini paintboxes. They're up on etsy with more to come. Thanks for reading Parisbreakfast! If you like this post and want to support it, buy Paris letters and watercolors or forward to someone who might enjoy it. 

Lignes & Couleurs, Dessiner Le Paysage - Meet Juliette Plisson

 

Meet my watercolor friend and artist, JULIETTE PLISSON .

We met in Clermont Ferrand at one of those Carnet de Voyage exhibitions.

19th Rendez-Vous du Carnet de Voyage, Clermont-Ferrand

HAPPY HAPPY THANKSGIVING Everyone! I'm still recovering from the feast of last weekend's annual. RENDEZ-VOUS DU CARNET DE VOYAGE in Clermont-Ferrand. Here's a few of the bits and bobs I collected at the sketchbook fair.

100 carnettistes or sketchbook artists have stands (on 2 floors) and trying to see every one of them can be wearing but immensely inspiring if you love to draw.

My teacher Jeremy Soheylian has 2 new books in addition to his Burgundy book.

All the artists present have books and hand-made items for sale.

Plus there's a huge book area to browse.

You buy the books and then come back to the artist's stand to get them personally signed

I was delighted to meet at last JULIETTE PLISSON, whose watercolors I've admired for ages.

Fun to see her paintbox

And colors

And exquisite, fluid landscape watercolors. She teaches every Monday in Neuilly and I'm going soon.

She makes these wonderful accordian books. I couldn't resist her Venice panoramic littlle book.

JOAQUIN DORAO has been at the fair everytime I've attended. Accordian sketchbooks are clearly very popular.

Behind him the map of his trip in Spain.

His printer takes apart his actual sketchbook painted on the trip and then stitches it back together.

His tiny traveling paintbox. Dorao does travel workshops in Crete etc.

I was fascinated by these tiny 3" sketchbooks of CLAUDIO BORSATO.

A whole box was filled with them

He said a friend sent them from Amsterdam. If they'd been available at the fair art shop i would have grabbed some. Borsato uses a BIC ballpoint pen to do these wonders!

Fortunately there were areas where you could sit and listen to audio travel adventures...and possibly catch a few Zzzs before looking at more sketchbooks.

Speaking of bits and bobs, I'm having a 🎨 water C O L O R - F R I D A Y sale on ETSY starting tomorrow...lots of watercolors sitting around here you might enjoy going for not much.

Enjoy your Turkey!