I’ve been a fan of Moleskine’s Cahier notebooks with the craft paper covers. I’d written about the joy of starting a new one previously here.

Recently I’d also become a bit interested in linocut prints. So it seemed natural for me to decorate the next batch of notebooks with a print.

I settled on a pretty simple traditional Japanese-style pattern. It came out pretty wonky because honestly, I have the drawing skills of a potato. But that’s okay.

One thing I hadn’t considered is that this would mean a LOT of cutting out. I find the process pretty cathartic, but still, it took ages. I think my cutting tools aren’t super good quality – I bought the cheapest ones they had, so they probably need to be sharpened. I’ll figure that out.

The final result is pretty lo-fi but looks very sweet overall.

A few lessons for next time:

– It would be cool if the print covered the whole cover, or was less clearly defined as a block.

– I need to use a hell of a lot of pressure to get the cut to print nicely.

– Make sure there isn’t too much or too little ink on the block (which I hope comes with practice, because I found it pretty hard to tell if it was alright).