Yes, I know that it’s only been a few days but I bet you’re dying to know how the Derwent Academy Sketchbook is working out for me.
I usually make a sketch on the first page when I buy a new
sketching journal, so the book already had one sketch in it. Since then I’ve
made 2 on Sunday, 2 on Monday , 2 on Tuesday, 3 on Wednesday, 3 on Thursday, 3
on Friday and 4 today. That’s 19 in total this week – close to 3 per day.
Bearing in mind that the book has 128 pages I’m aiming
(hoping) to fill it by the end of February. December was a month where I
couldn’t really achieve very much with the sketching journal challenge because
of other projects. But last week I ended up making over 20 drawings in order to
finish my Seawhite of Brighton A5 sketching journal so I seem to be back in the
groove with it. When I try to project how long it’s going to take me to fill a
sketchbook I use a rate of 2 pages per day as a rough guide. With 108 pages
left that suggests a finish on 5th March. But then, if you go back
to before December I was averaging more than 14 drawings a week, so I think
that it’s a decent bet that I will be able to complete by the end of February.
Barring unforeseen circumstances. I know that I’m committed to it at the moment
because of what happened on Tuesday. I’ll try to explain.
On a week day/working day, part of my routine is that after
finishing breakfast I can usually have between 45 minutes and an hour before I
want to leave for work and in this time I try to make the first drawing of the
day. Usually I do manage to do this and it means that I only need to do one
more after work to hit the target. It often means I have the option of making a
third drawing as well. On Tuesday, though, I decided to spend the time between
breakfast and departure for work reading to the end of the John Grisham novel I
was reading. There’s a fine line when you have set yourself a challenge. On the
one hand you don’t want to fall behind if you don’t have to. On the other hand
you don’t want it to start feeling like a chore. Okay, but there were a couple
of complicating factors on Tuesday night, though. For one thing I wasn’t going
to be home until later than normal, because I needed to visit the local library
to photocopy my picture handout for Thursday night’s quiz. Then when I got home
I really needed to write a review of Monday night’s University Challenge for my
blog. I got into the habit of leaving these reviews before Christmas and they
really started to stack up. It took a big effort to get myself back up to date.
So it would have been easy for me to have just let it go on Tuesday. And I
didn’t. I made one drawing, with the plan of calling it a day, but having
completed one I found the oomph to do another.
So let’s get down to brass tacks and talk about my first
impressions of the journal itself. When I’m trying out a new sketching journal
there’s several things I’m looking out for. In no particular order these
include
- Durability. I need a sketching journal to be able to
stand up to living for weeks at a time in my rucksack.
- Design. Some sketching journals just look and feel nicer
than others
- Versatility. Although the majority of my drawings in a
sketching journal are done in fine liner pen, it’s also nice to know that I
have the option of using coloured pens and even watercolour if I so desire.
This leads on to the next criterion –
- Paper quality. Specifically, how pleasurable it is to
draw on, and how well it takes black fine liner.
- Price. Specifically the price per page. I don’t like to
feel like I’m paying through the nose for an inferior product. Likewise I don’t
want to pay a premium for a well known name.
How does the Derwent seem to measure up in these areas,
then?
Durability. The jury is out for a while on this one. When
it’s had a few weeks living in the rucksack I’ll be in a better position to let
you know.
Design. It’s a genuine A5 size, like the Seawhite. To be
honest I don’t mind whether a journal is true A5 or slightly smaller like the
Moleskine and Royal Talens. The hard covers are cloth bound, like the Canson
and the Amazon Basics. I can’t say I have a strong feeling about this, but I do
prefer the finish of the Moleskine, Royal Talens and Seawhite journals. Cloth
often does feel a little cheap. The journal does have elastic fastening, but
lacks an integral bookmark or a document pocket on the inside cover. That’s not
necessarily a deal breaker for me, but I’d rather have them than not.
Versatility -The paper is 135gsm. That’s actually the same as the Seawhite which copes well with
watercolour, but then the paper in the Seawhite performs exceptionally well
considering how light it is. The good people at Derwent do stress that this is
for specifically dry media. I have used watercolour, with mixed results. I was surprised
how nice the painting I made is – the colours combined quite nicely even if
they are just a wee bit muted. The good news is there is no show through on the
other side. However the paper is so waffled and buckled that it was difficult
to make a decent sketch on the other side of the paper. I have tried using
0.4mm cheap and cheerful coloured fineliners. Curiously it was only the dark
blue that came through in 2 places.
Paper Quality - The pages themselves are quite a bright
white, brighter than the pages in the Seawhite, and they’re pretty smooth. This
worried me a bit at first. But I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised
with the way that it responds to black fineliner. First impressions are that
it’s not quite up there with Moleskine and Seawhite but it’s maybe just a bit
better than the others. With a 0.1mm fine liner the lines that you get are very
nice and crisp.
Price - In August I think Amazon decided that they were not
going to stock this product any more, and so they were selling them off for a
really good price. In terms of price per page it’s the cheapest pure sketching
journal I’ve bought.
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