Moleskine Stories.

Categories: artwork, events

Tags: Nomad Brush, London, Tablet artwork, Jot Script, Moleskine stories, app artwork, Dagi 501, Covent Garden

Date: 07 September 2014 13:55:15

Anyone who knows me knows that I generally carry a tablet and a Moleskine at all times. One of the limited edition ones, which I normally try and pick up when they're released. The pad that is... I'm not in a position to buy every tablet which catches my eye ;) (I've also been known, on occasion, to lose a Moleskine. The picture above captures a particularly rubbish time in the past year where I lost the pad, the pencil case and the mate who's iPad I drew the detailed meeting notes on). So I was interested to see, via Twitter, that Moleskine were sponsoring an Urban Sketchcrawl based around the London Graphic Centre and their Covent Garden shop. As it was World Beard Day I decided to treat myself and join in. ... and fabulous stuff it was too. I packed the iPad and my current Moley (a lovely Peanuts one) and drew, to start off with, the Moleskine store itself (having decided to stick to the Moleskine app for all of the days drawings*): Then the shop window with the posters and so on advertising the event: (which I did while multi tasking as normal as I  had a few people asking me about apps and styli... which is fine but reminds me I REALLY must update my blog posts about which is the best app and stylus to use). As a group the Urban Sketcher (didn't catch his name as I is short and was way at the back of proceedings) walked us to the Apple Store arches (as it was raining) and I drew this: After that I popped over to Shake Shack (as I think  that will become the focus of a blog post soon to come, which is pretty exciting stuff if it pans out as planned) and painted this: and this: (while chatting to staff about days available/art styles and also eating the drawn objects :) How's THAT for multi-tasking :) ). Then it was back to the Moleskine groups :) This time at the London Graphics Centre.   ...where the lovely Andrea Joseph was talking (far too modestly) about her artwork, technique, style etc. By this point I noticed my trusty but ageing iPad was getting low on battery so I plugged in an external battery and swapped to the pad instead: ...and then as a group we walked to a nearby shopping arcade to do some drawing. Ironically, being surrounded by building and glass, I was more taken with the centrepiece of the courtyard - a tree wrapped up in fairy lights: which I was happily drawing to the extent that I didn't realise the battery charger had become dislodged. Cue slight panic as the iPad powered down but I needed have worried. Once the power came back on I found the Moleskine app had saved my picture ready to start off again on it. While I was nervously waiting for the iPad to recharge enough I swapped to the Moleskine app on my phone and drew this: ...which couldn't be further from the tree in terms of content yet was the view on the other side of the shopping centre's courtyard. And that, more or less, was that. I did pop into the Apple Store to have a quick play with Talkboard on an iPad Air (as I really do need to update my iPad sometime and I wanted to check all styli worked on the screen): ... and on the way home, having been reminded it was World Beard Day, I doodled this until the battery ran out for the last time of the day:   Which, ironically, is a picture of me drawing with a touch screen stylus on a Moleskine pad using an iPad stylus on the Moleskine app. It was, basically, that sort of day. Wonderful, a smidge tiring. So tiring, in fact, that I was in London yet only realised on the way home I'd not been to Chin Chin Labs. Will mention it to Team Moleskine that Camden Market would make an excellent place for a future crawl... *well, nearly. Apps used in this post: Moleskine Journal, ArtRage, Photoshop Touch, Sketchbook Pro, Talkboard.