the international moleskine exchange

I've been involved in The International Moleskine Exchange, or Moly-X, for about a year now. Moly-X is a fantastic collaborative project founded by ballpoint master Marty Harris, to connect artists around the world through art. Marty runs the entire operation with the participation of Moly-X members through Flickr— at this point we have 61 exchanges going. Interested artists join the group by visiting the Moly-X Flickr group page, and either join an existing exchange or ask other artists to form a new one. Once an exchange has formed, the group gets a blog and each artist buys their own Moleskine sketchbook. Moleskine is a lovely brand of sketchbooks and journals that has one book in particular that lends itself well to the project— the Japanese folding Moleskine. It is essentially a nine foot long piece of paper folded accordian-style into 60 pages.

After each artist has a book, they have a month to draw, paint or collage a piece of art on the first three or so pages. Then a rotation plan is set up, and the artists swap sketchbooks in the rotation order. The next artist has one month to draw in the book that was sent to them, then they send it off to the next artist and so on. Once the books are filled, they are sent back their original owners, and everyone gets a marvellous nine feet of art that has travelled the globe. I'm currently in seven exchanges with artists in 13 different countries. Moly-X has had an enormous effect on my drawing skill and speed, and I love being exposed to different styles and cultures. I've formed friendships and learned so much. Links to the blogs of the exchanges I am in are listed in the links section, and if you'd like to learn more about Moly-X, please visit us on Flickr.

Here are a few of my entries— click on the images to see them larger: