I Don't Get It

I don’t get it

In my last post I gave the damning verdict that the Crawford and Black sketchbook is ‘just about usable’. This rather unkind observation was prompted by the thinness of the paper, which means it allows fine liner to bleed through and also the surface which is more resistant to the pen than I like. Here’s a recent sketch I made in it.

That's not dirt on the right of the picture. That's where the fineliner from the sketch on the other side of the page has bled through. 

Well, yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and try it with watercolour. Here’s the picture

Shiver me timbers, yo ho ho and dare I say it, a bottle of rum into the bargain. I was very pleasantly surprised with the brightness of the colours 

This is what I don’t get. I decided not to do a full page landscape of the sort which I have done in other journals because I couldn’t see how the paper could possibly cope. So I made this pirate sketch. I love fictional pirates – always loved Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” and the first couple of Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I have to say I was extremely surprised just how brightly the colours came out. They blend wet on wet as well as in most of the sketching journals I’ve used which you can see on the hat. But the most surprising thing is there is no bleeding through of the paint on the other side of the page. It has cockled and the other side of the page doesn’t look as if it will be the easiest surface to draw on, but again, it hasn’t done as badly as the Derwent academy book I used recently.

It’s kind of counter intuitive. My mind tells me that paper that is 115gsm like this should be quite a bit worse when you use watercolour on it. I think that the next thing will be, when I have time, to do a full watercolour landscape in it to see how it works out.

As for fine liner, the bleeding through is really annoying. I don’t find it a forgiving or enjoyable paper to work on. But the results aren’t necessarily that bad as I think I’m starting to get to grips with it. See what you think. These were both made in the Crawford and Black sketchbook.

This is a response to a prompt in the Daily Drawing Challenge group on Facebook - 0.2mm fine liner

This is Ongar station, back in the days when it was the very last station on the end of the Central Line. 

That’s something.

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Yesterday I introduced you to the Nassau sketchbook I started last week. Here’s a couple of the pictures:-

North American Bison - 0.2mm fine liner Nassau sketchbook

Joe Louis - 0.2mm fine liner. This was a response to a prompt in the Facebook group Daily Drawing Challenge

The book is okay. The surface isn’t quite as uneven as the Crawford and Black, but my first impression is that it isn’t as enjoyable to sketch in as more expensive books I’ve used. But one thing I never noticed until I scanned some of the pictures is just how off white the paper is – which wasn’t obvious to me when I made the sketches. I have mixed feelings about this sort of ivory coloured paper. The paper in the Royal Talens Art Creations sketchbook is maybe even more ivory and I enjoyed using that book. However I think it can have an effect on the colour values when you apply watercolour. Time will tell on that one.