Nicole's book Ready to go

Omar, afternoon I'll have the track number.

I'm looking forward to work in yours and Danica's book. Um abraço do Brasil.

Ramires Book

Dear Robert, when you finish, please send my book directly to me, I'll send my postal address by e-mail.
Thank you so much.

Madame (Moly) X

The postman visited me today!!

It is a beautiful and challenging book, I will strive to maintain the high level.
I've seen this in Minneapolis, but I do not tire of saying how beautiful is the work of Nicole, and Tim was also lovely. I love the idea of the book on the table to make small doodles.
Thanks for the gift Tim :-))))

MolyXers in Minnesota!

I had a wonderful time in Minnesota over the last few days with Claudio and Marty Harris (our gracious host and the founder of our incredible project). It was a bit surreal meeting these guys for the first time, yet knowing them so well from moly_x...it was much more like seeing old friends rather than people I’d never met in the flesh before.

Talkin’ Moly_X with Marty at MCBA

Last night we had a wonderful Q&A session with Roz Stendhal’s Visual Journal Collective at the Moly_X exhibit at Minnesota Center for Book Arts. The ladies were all very enthusiastic and several have already expressed interest in joining the fun.

Working on Nicole’s book at Marty’s house with Claudio

Sadly I was not able to finish Nicole’s book in time to send it off with Claudio today (Too much fun with ‘The Band’ as Claudio was calling us). But I will get it done before I skip town.

I encourage anyone within driving distance of Minneaopolis to try and stop by the MCBA show before it comes down on March 6th. It’s truly inspiring to see so many of these amazing books up together at once.

Ramires' Moly - Finally finished!

Happy New Year everyone. I hope 2011 is treating you well so far.

So, I've had Ramires' book for far too long now but after the incredible image he made for my book I felt I really had to knock this out of the park. After scrapping a few different sketches I hit upon the idea of using Ramires' own dream-like images in the drawing. I've loved his blimp-whales ever since I found them on his flickrstream. I also love his intricate speaker systems which suspend from the whales. I figured Claudio should definitely captain the wonderful craft bringing ethereal sounds to all those he drifts over. Hope you like it Claudio!

I'm debating adding full-color to the two inset panels, but I'll probably just leave them alone. Now, who should this go to next? Or should I send it to Marty and see if he can squeeze it into the show?

Robert's Book is on the way

 In 4 days it will be there. Today yet I'll inform the tracking number. Have a funny time working on it my friend Omar

Robert's Book ready to go

Dear friends, I did a collage extracting a little piece of Dana's  work  and I did a exchange for a portrait part. Dana I hope you don't care about my invasion, I did it looking for integration between our works.
I think the better part of these exchanges is exactly this. The opportunity to make coletive experiments.
My "x ray" self portrait can be folded to play with the shadows.
I used pieces of Moleskine red label to harmonize with the red oxide I did used in the painting.
How I said wednesday morning I'll send it as a priority mail to Omar in the Arab Emirates because tomorrow is a Holyday in Brazil.

Robert's Book Just Arrived

Look what i found 30 min ago in my mail box :-)
I'll work now, but tomorrow is a holyday here in Brazil.
Wednesday morning I'll send it as a priority mail to Omar in the Arab Emirates.

Yelnoc's Book Making Of - The last (I promisse)

 

 And a little preview over my "test jap fold"...

I purposely wanted to do a dark piece, with little contrast and definition, it talks something about my last weeks.
Well, some small details will be made directly in the book shipped by Dana during assembly.

Roberts Moly

So I started working as soon as Ramires told me the idea. First of all I choose a picture
I will work with that one with robert and his son on the mirror but just a close up of the face.
second I did some sketches over cardboard. I like to work over cardboard, the brown backgroud serves a middle tone and creates more dramatic effetc working over with black and white colours. I though about a dark background that now that I know that ramires is also using a dark grey i will try to make it similar. the dificulty maybe in this portrait is how to include myself in it. But the white marker gave me the idea to make just a siluete of myself, but I still have not decide from wich image. Then I tried some of this Gold Callygraphy marker and it is wonderful....I make some lines, simulating constellations and geometry patterns, I added also numbers and symbols. I am still playing arround with the idea. Next step will be to use some pages from a Moly I got home to start working the portrait. I will like to try (since I still have time) with acrylics, but since I still don't feel sicure with them, at the end I could choose something else.

Robert's Book - MO 2

Maybe the x-ray is the most honest and deeper self portrait I can imagine :-) Here are some photos of how it is possible to play using transparencies and shadows on an x ray film.

Robert's Book... Making of

To avoid wasting the voyage time of the Robert's book between Dana and myself, I decided to use some time last Saturday to do my part. 
And as in a surrealistic history the book is ready even before arriving here :-))
When the book gets here I can use only a few hours doing the assembling and sending the book to Omar. He is now also doing something similar (yes we have a small conspiracy in favor of speed  :-))) so that the book will be even  richer for the exhibit at Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA).  
Omar also will not stay that long without seeing a book, so I imagine that this will keep everyone happy.
We've done the accounts during the weekend and we believe that this way the book reaches Marty Harris before the end of November (Using express shippment).
Is it a bit daring and challenging? Yessss, we are artists !!! :-)))

Now and in the coming days I will publish photos of the whole process and this might be interesting to see how I create and produce these small jobs in his books :-) And how is this fun for me :-))

1- The first step is the idea, it seems too obvious, but I always like to think of ideas that fit in the available time, in this case was within a day.  
I also decided to make his portrait on the original moleskine paper, so cut out a page from an old notebook (the paper is thin and easy to assemble later). At this stage I choose the photo and other references that I'll use.
I wanted to use acrylics in Robert's portrait, but to my self portrait I thought of something to express some of my current "blue feelings" and I decided to use an x-ray film to make a collage. 
I cut the Robert's picture in the same proportion of moleskine page, it is helpful to use the photo as reference
  

2 - The choice of x-ray film for my self portrait determined the color palette for the Robert's portrait. 

Basically it's almost a black and white" palette , but I do not use black on my palette, my gray is born from the breaking complementary colors (in the middle of the plate). In that case I used Prussian blue, burnt sienna and a little bit of red oxide.This approaching cold gray tones of a  x-ray film . (I took these from the same color palette study of a larger work I am doing).
Tomorrow I'll tell you more :-))

Suzette and Dana

Hy People I just sent an e-mail asking to Dana send his mail address to Suzette can send my book directly to Dana.
Thank you so much.

Hi people

Dear friends, I'm a little worried about our group. 
I'm not asking to everyone has the same enthusiasm for the beautiful new things  have appeared here, but we made a commitment to accept the rules of the project.  
I would like to reinforce this by asking that always make posts telling everyone what is happening with the books.
1) You just got someone's book, post here!
 2) You just mailed someone's book out, post here! 
3) You have kept the book longer than a month but plan to work on it as soon as possible and mail it out, post heret!
4) You no longer have time and need to leave the group but have someone's book?, Contact the next artist, get their address, mail it out, post here! 
5) You were sick, on vacation, work stressing you out but want to continue with the group but have not been able to work on books but you have them, post here!

Also I will repeat one part of the first post made on this Blog about the rules of Moly_X with which we all agree:
The concept:

2. Each artist gets 1 month to make a sketchbook entry.

3. Please communicate regularly via email. Let each person know that you have received/sent the book. The goal is to have a dialogue. Any comments and questions are welcome.

Unfortunately we had a lot of this subject here and it was already foreshadow the end of other groups.Please feel free to disagree, call me boring, but write something for us to know that we are all "alive" in the project.

What do you think?

Tim,s book ready to go

 I sent today to Omar. I sent in the quickest possible with the promise to arrive within a week. The last time I did so, but it took almost a month. Pray brothers :-)

About other portraits...

Dear friends, I am doing a large painting that will have many human figures in different situations of light and atmosphere, and some that are in the foreground are painted life-size, and for that I am doing some preliminary studies to determine the best pick color and some expressions. As it has to do with portraits, I'm sharing with you here. In my blog (in Portuguese) You can see the color palette used in this study.
Um abraço :-))

Tim wearing 3D glasses

Check another video here: Video 2

Dear MolyXp2 friends

After some weeks of trouble and a lot of imbalance, I'm using Saturday to work on the Tim's book It's been a time with less worry and a bit of fun and peace in my new studio.Through the window I see my daughter's room, I'm drinking mate and I'm listening to a Vitor Ramil milonga... It seems the sun will shine again.

Dana's Book

Pencil and Pitt Ink pen