Clean up your act

and get ready for the new year

Since the last few weeks (or months, depending in how you look at it) have been hectic, I caught up with Terry Moore’s “Studio Sunday” YouTube videos last week after a while letting them pile up, and I was so pleasantly surprised by this particular one where Terry gives a very didactic lesson on different papers, pens, nibs and brushes cartoonists often use, how each gives a different result, and how to properly clean and preserve your tools.

More people should watch it, so I’m posting it below.

I let the video play while I was in my drawing board, inking a cover I had to finish, and by the time I was almost done with the inking and started to think that I would have to clean my brush afterwards, the cleaning-up-the-brush part of the video arrived and it felt like a really happy accident.

I’ve cleaned my brush with this brush cleaner product for years. I can’t quite remember who recommended it to me. I bought the pot on the right side of the picture at the Canal Street Pearl art store, which I visited every time I was in New York until it closed down many years ago, so that shows that this first pot was ancient. I think I bought it in 2005. It lasted long enough (and it still has some juice left in it it the other pot isn’t around). The second pot I bought more recently, before the pandemic, in one of my last international trips of 2019.

New year wishes

Do you feel seen?

Are you proud of what people see? Is this the you you want to project out into the World?

This is my last letter of the year. There are several changes waiting for all of us next year. Here in Brazil, we’re specially anxious and eager to start a new chapter in our lives after very dark four year. The World is a strange place right now, and not without its challenges. We must not forget that there’s love and beauty all round us while we navigate these chaotic times. Chaos can bring change, and change, when it brings growth, can be good.

Let us grow.

Let us change.

Let us love and be loved and appreciate those around us who wish us well.

Create. Be creative. Think creatively. Wish for a new year where you can be more than you’ve been, and do more than you’ve done.

Be safe. Be kind. Be curious. See you around.
Pa-ZOW!

Fábio Moon
Moon Base, São Paulo
December 19th, 2022