What if someone found your secret notebooks from childhood, almost 40 years after you’d last written in them? It could happen: a 9 year old girl hid these notebooks in a crawl space in her home in 1983. They were forgotten and her family moved away. Decades later, contractors working on the home gave them … Continue reading Secret Notebooks from 1983
It seems strange to be writing a review of this Korean notebook now, as it represents a pre-COVID milestone for me. It was a gift from a friend who lives in South Korea. She came back to the US for a visit in February, and we talked about the shutdowns that were already happening in … Continue reading A Korean Notebook Review
Before the holidays, I was talking about my wishlist of a few notebook/sketchbook/art supply items. Santa came through! I expected to receive James McElhinney’s Sketchbook Traveler book, and I wasn’t disappointed. McElhinney’s pocket size sketches are reproduced life-size, each accompanied with text about the location depicted. Additional material in the book gives some lessons about … Continue reading Christmas Books
Saturn and Jupiter aren’t the only things intersecting in unusual ways this year. For me, I’m having a notebook conjunction, where my 4 daily use notebooks are all ending almost at the same time! First off, two of them are 2020 Nolty planners, so it’s not unexpected that I’d finish using both of those at … Continue reading The December 2020 Conjunction
Here’s a few things I discovered over the past few weeks, at least one of which I think might be under my Christmas tree already. The rest will be purchased with a gift card I just received! J.M.W. Turner: The Wilson Sketchbook This looks like a lovely facsimile sketchbook to add to my collection. Turner … Continue reading What I Want for Christmas!
A lovely image of a notebook that belonged to Rodin. I found this on the website of an auction house, where it was sold for over 20,000 Euros. A little out of my price range! I guess I’ll have to stick to eBay for buying notebooks that belonged to artists! See the original image and … Continue reading Rodin’s Notebook
Such an odd story… they announced last week that two of Darwin’s notebooks must have been stolen, after being missing for 20 years. Imagine a library so big that it takes them 20 years to decide for sure if something is just misplaced or definitely not there at all! Twenty years ago, two historic notebooks … Continue reading Lost or Stolen Darwin Notebooks
For years, I’ve wanted to find an example of the original “carnets moleskine” that existed for many decades before the capital-M Moleskine brand was founded. It’s difficult to research online, as the capital-M notebooks dominate the results if you try to search any related terms. I wrote about it in a blog post a few … Continue reading 1898 Agenda Notebook
I thought this was quite an intriguing presentation of an artist’s sketchbooks– though perhaps frustrating, as you’d want to be able to see more! It’s from an installation of artworks by Antonio Marras, who is best known as a fashion designer. He may have made a name for himself as a fashion designer, but the … Continue reading Notebooks Under Glass
I stumbled across an old article from Wallpaper about a 2015 exhibition of the sketchbooks of British architect Chris Wilkinson, at the Royal Academy. Looks like it must have been a very interesting show! Here is an image from one of Chris Wilkinson’s sketchbooks: I also love this image of his pile of sketchbooks. Almost … Continue reading Chris Wilkinson’s Sketchbooks