I like how you can fold it back and also not have to deal with the hardbound versions lack of layflat, so it’s a compromise I’m willing to make for how cheap and versatile it is. And it’s really thick, but it has to be to house 60 pages of this heavy weight of paper, that doesn’t stop it from being annoying as hell though.

I personally end up rotating the book every other page to keep from having to draw into the coil on the back side of the pages. It’ll bunch up after a while, wiggle around and just be a general nuisance. The only thing worse than how the outside looks is the spine though. The Stillman and Birn Alpha paper is a much thirstier paper, so if you know what that’s like, imagine a place between that and a smoother Bristol Board. It is a thirstier paper, so it can cause some dry brushing at times. The front side of the paper is like a fake watercolor paper, you would never mistake it for actual watercolor paper, but the ‘cold press’ like feel of it is there. There are two very specific feeling sides to the paper, you can really tell the difference in tooth. They allowed me to really throw some garbage out on the page and just draw, instead of worrying about messing up a page in a “Gallery” of a sketchbook. Though I’d say that these sketchbooks helped me a lot in getting better.

I ain’t neither of them, as much as I wish I was. AKA, this thing is a actually sketchbook versus what most people end up doing with Moleskines, creating their James Jean or Kim Jung Gi masterpiece sketchbook. You can do a masterpiece beside a set of 30 second gestures and it’s not that upsetting. 60 Pages, heavy duty paper, can take a certain amount of wash OK (it will buckle a bit), and I don’t feel bad about drawing a shit ass doodle in this thing. They are ubiquitous, cheap (I’ve gotten them for $5 often), and it takes most every ink you can throw at it. I’ve bought them in Wal-Mart, Michaels, local art supply stores (RIP Askew Taylor in Raleigh, NC), and Amazon, obviously. They are one of the few sketchbook with paper that I enjoy that you can get nearly anywhere. I’ve used a few Canson Mixed Media sketchbooks over the years.

Sketchbook michaels