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Sketchbook recommendations please
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Message
Posted
Hello all, I’m looking to get a sketchbook to take on holiday with me… I’ll be using pencil, watercolour pencil, pen and ink. I think I’d prefer a hardback type (less chance of getting bent and battered in a suitcase), and want to be able to sketch on both sides of the paper without seepage from the sketch on the previous page.
Can any of you recommend something (not too expensive, a modest price). Smaller than A4 I think.
Thanks 😀
Edited
by Helen Martell
Posted
I love the Stillman & Birn series, decent quality thick paper. Not a thick backing board but I’ve not found that any disadvantage.
I’ve got the Delta series as per photo, there’s a whole range of different options available. The Beta is a mixed media paper.
Adibanji uses these so a good enough recommendation for me!
Jackson’s have the full range, Amazon have a few!
The cream coloured paper takes a reasonably wet wash, see my example where I’ve used a double spread for a local landscape!
Edited
by Alan Bickley
Posted
I have always used Moleskine I shop around for prices but all the good art shops and Amazon have them . I like the elastic band that keeps pages flat on windy days plus a pocket inside the back cover for keeping bits and pieces, mine tend to acquire feathers and leaves.
Super quality paper ...just nice to use .
Posted
I've tried both Moleskine and Stillman & Birn Zeta series, both in A5 size. The S&B Zeta is a very smooth paper (270gsm) which doesn't cockle if you flood it, the Moleskine (200gsm) will cockle very slightly if you flood it, and is textured. They are roughly the same price at the moment on Amazon .
I've just purchased an Amazon Basics A5 sketchbook for when my current one is filled, and it looks good but can't attest to it's characteristics yet. It's 200 gsm paper and has a wallet at the back both as per the Moleskine, in fact it looks like a Moleskine clone, but you can't judge a book by its cover as they say. One advantage is that the Amazon Basics prices are ridiculously cheap (£4.42 vs £18.41) on Amazon.
If you are looking to make a permanent record of your holiday I'd go for the Stillman & Birn, but if you are like me and like to fill pages with experiments and mistakes, the Amazon Basics would probably do the job.
I use Seawhite of Brighton sketchbooks - they do a wide range, nothing too expensive; strangely, I find the mixed-media surface better for watercolours than their watercolour surface! 
Posted
Yes Seawhite are great and a good price. A few years ago a few friends and some friends from POL did a Sketchbook share...it involves everyone having identical sketchbooks, we all chose a theme ,they were passed on to other participants who followed the same theme ....sounds complicated but it isn't really. The point being we used Sea white they are a goog price and they were posted all over the country on a monthly basis also all sorts of stuff was used, glue, glitter ...paste plus normal paints etc
Excellent value .
Posted
I have three on the go at the moment: but two of them are A4 size, which I wouldn't recommend for taking on holiday with you: I have one with heavyweight Canson mutli purpose paper - wish I hadn't bought this particular one, with (feebly) gummed-in pages, but I do like the paper; one which I've not used before, named Spring and Space, 200 gm paper, in a spiral bound pad of 40 sheets; I have just filled an Art Gecko pad; and I have a more suitable for the holidays Fabriano Classic Artist's Journal, roughly A5 size, around 140gm paper I think, well over 100 sheets of paper in two shades, half white, half buff. Good for sketching in pen and ink, and graphite; takes a VERY light wash.
Oh, and I have an A4 Daler Rowney pad for pastels and chalks.
If I were off on travels - most unusual, I haven't left the island in two years! - I'd take one of the red and yellow Daler Rowney cartridge pads, or perhaps their heavier weight paper: an A5, an A6, and a tin of Mars Lumograph pencils, from 8B donwards, plus a fountain pen either filled with ink already or with a box of ink cartridge. Or maybe a pad of watercolour paper and one of those little plastic boxes of w/colour pans, made by both Daler Rowney and Winsor and Newton - or Rembrandt watercolours, if they sell them in similar boxes.
The Fabriano journal by the way has a semi-stiff cover: stiffer than the average small sketch-book cover.
I've yet to try a Moleskine, but that's next on my list to purchase.
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