Which Materials - Hardbound A4 Sketchbooks

 

When I began sketching and painting almost a decade ago I soon learnt that you’re less likely to get decent result with watercolour if you don’t use heavy enough watercolour paper. You can’t use any old paper, in a way that I could with fineliner. I would buy a cheap pad like this. They’re not expensive full price – and at the time I could find them on discount in various places. The paper is a little smooth, but at 170 gsm it has a pleasing weight to it. You can make perfectly good sketches on it and if you're careful it will give you decent results with watercolour on top.

I also used these Daler Rowney red and yellow books. I gave myself a challenge a few years ago to make sketches of all London Underground stations and this was one of the first of several

different books I used, and it performed perfectly well for what I wanted. So did the Easynote. The Daler Rowney is only 150 gsm and only has 25 pages compared with the 40 pages of the Easynote, so for me that’s the best option I’ve used at all in the last few years of this sort of sketchpad. I'd call it a budget option, but bearing in mind the number of pages in both, they're really not that great value. If you take the Daler Rowey for example, today this pad retails for slightly more on Amazon than a Seawhite 140 gsm that has more than four times the number of pages in it. You can make fine ink sketches in a read and yellow pad, but not noticeably better than the results you ca get in the Easynote, or the hardbound Seawhite. So, as I've often said, you live and learn.

Which brings me to hardback A4 sketchbooks. Although I had been given quite a few over the years I had never used one until Christmas Day 2023. The same daughter who had bought me the Moleskine travel sketching journal bought me this hardback sketch book. It’s landscape format, which I was a bit dubious about but which I’ve really enjoyed using. The brand is Mont Marte, which is not a brand I’ve encountered before. They are an

Australian based company. The book has fifty leaves, giving you 100 pages. The covers are embossed with a crocodile skin effect which make them pleasing to the touch. The paper is 150 gsm, with quite a rough texture. I wouldn’t use a fineliner that is any thicker than 0.3mm on it for anything other than shading, but all in all, I made a couple of sketches in it and found that I really enjoyed using it. So much so that I really didn’t want to make any substandard sketches in it. Which has come to affect the amount of time and care I am spending on my sketchwork and that’s certainly not a bad thing.

With fineliners you do sometimes get a bit of showthrough which makes me wary of using both sides of the paper. I used watercolour washes on this picture of Hammersmith Bridge and I do like the way that the colour comes through, even though the cheap generic fineliner brand I was using proved to be far less waterproof than I had thought. However, if you do apply watercolour then you really cannot use the other side of the page. There’s relatively little buckling which is all to the good.

When I finished the Mont Marte book towards the end of March I bought myself a Seawhite of Brighton hardback A4 sketchbook - which I mentioned earlier. I’ve been reading reviews and watching reviews on Youtube most of which are really positive. It’s a British company and the sketchbooks are manufactured in the UK. These are all positives.

The sketchbook has 46 leaves making 92 pages. I would say that the paper has a slightly smoother texture than the Mont Marte book. The weight is

140 gsm, and this is a bit of an issue. I use fineliner for the most part and even using fineliner with a nib as thin as 0.1mm you do often get show through. Not always but often enough.

I made a couple of sketches in it using coloured Staedtler 0.3mm fineliners, and the show through on these was more pronounced than in the mont marte book. That 10 lower gsm seems to make all the difference.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I applied a bit of watercolour to a sketch in the Seawhite book. I made sure that I used a waterproof fineliner this time and my initial thoughts are that based on one picture from each book, the Seawhite holds colours better than the Mont Marte, comparable to the Moleskine, I’d say. It’s buckled a little more than the Moleskine, but not as much as I worried that it would. After all, this is not specifically a watercolour book.

On a positive note, this is just as sturdy and hardwearing as the Mont Marte, and Seawhite products are more widely available in the UK than the Australian brand. Show through aside I’ve really enjoyed sketching in the book, and some of the sketches which make a strong contrast between dark and light have come out very effectively.

As I said at the start, I’ve completed the Monopoly Challenge and sold some prints recently so I went out to reward myself with a new sketchbook. I started out in Hobbycraft in Swansea. Hobbycraft are a UK arts and crafts superstore chain, which began in 1995. Speak as you find – Hobbycraft in Swansea has a nice atmosphere but I find it’s a little slapdash. I’ll give you an example of this. The drawing and painting supplies used to be on the first floor. Then they moved it downstairs. But they couldn’t be bothered to change the signage. My arthritic hips did not thank them for the wasted trip up and downstairs on my previous visit. I looked in again, but the only hardbacked A4 sketchbook which fitted what I wanted was the Seawhite one, and I did think that the price was a little steep. Since then I’ve checked online and you can definitely save money on it if you shop around. So I decided to see what was available in The Range and come back for the Seawhite if necessary.

The Range is another UK chain, although not a specialist Art and Craft chain like Hobbycraft. I’ve always felt that they have a good range, should you pardon the pun. In The Range I found this Winsor and Newton hard bound A4 portrait sketchbook, quite a bit cheaper than the price Hobbycraft were asking for the Seawhite equivalent. I think that it can be dangerous to automatically assume that a brand name is an absolute guarantee of quality, but Winsor and Newton is a name which leads me to expectations. I always carry a Winsor and Newton pocket sketchers Cotman set as part of my essential sketching gear and I’ve never had cause to regret it. My first travel watercolour set was a WH Smith own brand set and there’s no

comparison between the two in the quality of colour you get. So yes, I expect a lot from this sketchbook.

Now, what I’m going to say is very much a first impression, since I’ve just made the 2 sketches thus far. Bearing that in mind then, the book has 50 leaves which make 100 pages, which is a little more than the Seawhite book. The paper is 170gsm, which is heavier even than my Moleskine travel journal.

First impressions are that the 170gsm paper of this book takes fineliner better than the other two. Using a 0.05mm fineliner produced noticeably finer lines in this sketchbook than in the other two. This makes the marks just a little bit sharper. I wouldn’t say that there’s a huge amount in it, but it’s there. Also, in the first sketch in the book there isn’t even a hint of showthrough – but then this was also true of some of the pages in both of the others, so I’ll keep an eye on how consistent this is. To my eye the same watercolour set is brighter and more vibrant on this paper, and there’s noticeably less buckling. You could comfortably sketch on the other side of the paper, and I shouldn’t be surprised if you could pain on it as well.

One feature I’ve noticed is that the pages are perforated so you have the option of removing them more easily from the book, should you choose to do so.

So, would I recommend any of them? Yes, definitely, I’ve enjoyed using all three. With each one I have found myself looking forward to drawing in it.

I would say that if I wanted a sketchbook and I found all three for the same price, I would opt for the Winsor and Newton. There’s really nothing much to choose between the Mont Marte and the Seawhite and I would have no problem with using either brand in the future.

Funnily enough I do have another entrant in the hardback A4 sketchbook stakes. This is the WH Smiths Globetrotter A4 portrait leather hardbacked sketchbook. This is a line that has been discontinued and that is why I have so many of them – 8 in total. They were originally £7.99. . . but being as they were being discontinued they were being flogged off for a fraction of that price. My wife saw them and stocked up. So, sorry, but if you like the look of this product, well, you’re very unlikely to find it anywhere. Now, this was a few years ago now, and I hadn’t used one of them yet. Partly this is because I wasn’t using any hardbound A4 sketchbook. But having embarked on this series of comparisons it has had the effect of making

me look at my stockpile of materials and try them out.

the name, ‘Globetrotter’ shows that this product was aimed at the travel journal market, as if you couldn’t tell, and what you have here is an attempt to scale up the popular Moleskine format. So although this is A4 and slightly more than twice the size of the large Moleskine, it has the elastic strap keeping it closed, the integral ribbon bookmark, and he document pocket at the back. The covers are hardback, but covered in faux leather vinyl. Now, your Moleskine give you 104 surfaces of smooth, sturdy 165 gsm paper. The Globetrotter gives you , I made it, 97 pages, or 194 surfaces. This paper too is smooth, like a Moleskine. Sturdy though? Well that’s a different matter. The paper feels very thin. It doesn’t say how heavy it is, but I’d be surprised if it was even 120 gsm. After all, how else are you going to squeeze so many sheets into it?

The sketch above shows that you can actually make a pretty nice detailed ink sketch on it. I used a uniball 0.1mm fineliner because I know that this is waterproof and will take watercolour. Maybe this is why there was no showthrough with the ink. I used the same colours that I used in the other painted sketches in this post and here’s what the finished picture looks like.

I have to say that I’m very pleasantly surprised with the results. As I said, I’ve never used this book before, but I will again. You could make an ink drawing on the other side of the page, although I think painting on both sides would be asking for trouble.