Art Studio (The Range) Own Brand Sketchbook

I feel that I should give you some kind of excuse for this. I’ve bought another sketchbook. Here I am, slaving away trying to fill the sketchbooks that I’ve already got – so much so that I even have two sketchbooks on the go at the same time now (see my previous post) so what the hell am I doing buying more? As it is I’m more than 2/3 of the way through the Leuchtturm sketching journal I began on 8/2/26. That still leaves:-

A 1/3 full Moleskine

2 Unopened Moleskine

A Nassau sketching journal

A Morrison’s own brand journal

A Crawford and Black sketching journal (currently my secondary journal)

A Shore and Marsh sketching journal

An Amazon Basics A5 Portrait notebook.

That’s 8, most of which have at most only 1 sketch in them already and most of which have a large number of pages in them. I worked it out that since starting the challenge in mid July, I have finished 6 sketchbooks (and am relatively close to finishing another). In the same period I’ve now bought 6 more.

In all honesty I did not set off from the house this morning with the intention of buying a new sketchbook. No, I set off to The Range to buy some new Uniball fineliners. If you’re UK based I don’t know how well you know The Range. For several years they’ve been my first port of call for good art supplies as opposed to cheap own brands. Well, recently the stock of proprietary brands in my local store has shrunk, while the amount of space devoted to the Range’s own brand – Art Studio – has grown hugely. This has been a source of disappointment to me. Thankfully they still do Uniball pens. Well, just as I was about to go and pay for my pens, this caught my eye.

It’s an A5 sketchbook. 100 pages of 160gsm paper for . . . £1.99. 1.9p per page. I don’t really like wire bound books, but £1.99! Had the paper been thinner, I wouldn’t have bought it. Had they had a casebound option in the shop, I wouldn’t have bought this. But as it was I couldn’t leave without buying one to try.

For reasons that I’ve already covered it’s going to be a while before I can really try this out. But I have made one sketch in it today.

You might notice that I’ve used coloured fine liners. This is partly because I’m enjoying using these so much in my Leuchtturm. But it’s also because it’s a pretty decent test of how robust the paper is. Because if I’m honest, to the touch it doesn’t really feel that heavy. Many of the sketchbooks I’ve used struggle with coloured fine liners. Well, I have to say that there is absolutely no show through on the other side of this page.

It’s far too early to review this having only made one drawing, but it has certainly passed the first test. Oh, I just wish it was case bound rather than wire bound.