Tag Archives: sketchbook

Making Sketchbooks With Colored Papers

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There are dozens of videos and blog posts demonstrating how to make sketchbooks.  This isn’t really one of them.  Then again, it sorta, kinda, is.  I’m writing it because I mentioned that I’d made a couple small sketchbooks using brown paper in the Facebook group, Artist’s Journal Workshop.  One of the regulars in that group asked if I could show how I made them.  This post is what you might label a “Cliff Notes” (does that date me too much?) version of how to make a simple sketchbook.  I encourage you to surf through the YouTube videos for better explanations.

What are we talking about here?

These are the two sketchbooks I’ve made.  Both are identical in construction.  Both are 5.5×8 in size.  The one on the left contains brown pages, cut from plain, cheap postage wrapping paper.  I find this paper works well for pen drawings and you can even add light washes but it’s not very happy with too much water, however.  The cover of this sketchbook is made by cutting a file folder to size.  The benefit of this approach is that it’s already folded and the material is designed to act as a cover.  In short, it’s ideal and easy.  The binding tape (optional) is gaffer’s tape, a black, a fabric tape used to hold everything and anything together.  Think of it as a heavy-duty masking tape, which could substitute for this purpose.

The second sketchbook is composed of several colors of Canson mi-teintes paper.  I believe this is listed as a pastel paper but people use it for pen and watercolor sketches as well.  It’s not quite as smooth as the brown paper but it’s much thicker.  The cover comes from a 12×12 sheet of heavy, patterned paper I got in the scrapbook section of the art store.

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Besides the paper materials, what tools are required?

  • straight-edge
  • knife (Xacto, roller, or paper cutter)
  • measuring device
  • something to poke holes in the signatures (the folded paper) – I used a compass point
  • large needle
  • thread (see below)
  • scissors

Cut and prep the paper

To make a 5.5×8 sketchbook, you need a bunch (I used 6) of paper squares cut 11×8.  I’ll leave you to your devices to achieve this.  Then you need to fold each sheet so that you have a two-page signature leaf that’s 5.5×8 inches.  Use something hard and with an edge to crease the fold as tightly as you can.  I found it desirable to actually iron (low heat) the brown paper pages as the paper came off a roll and tended to retain that curve.

Once you have these pages, simply stick them, one inside the other, creating a single, 12-page (or 24 if you count both sides) signature.  The inner pages will stick out slightly beyond the outer pages.  Trim them if this concerns you.

Cutting and prep the cover

If you’re using a file folder for your cover, just cut it to fit around the paper.  Otherwise, fold your cover stock in half and cut it to fit around your paper.  That’s all there is to making a cover.

Sew it together

There are lots of fancy ways to sew up sketchbooks.  This ain’t one of those ways.  My goal wasn’t to replace my beautiful double-stitched Stillman & Birn sketchbooks.  It was to tie a few pages of colored paper together so I could sketch on them.  So…easy-peasy…we don’t do hard.

Before we get started, notice that there are three holes in the spine of this sketchbook.  These are punched before we sew.  Make the holes a bit larger than your threading needle to make the sewing easy but not so large that things get sloppy.  Punching those holes could be considered the ‘hard part’ but remember, this is easy-peasy sketchbook making.

Get out your phone book and flop it open on a table.  Open your sketchbook to its middle and stick the spine into the centerfold of phonebook phone book.  Take your sharp thingie (you chose your tool), and stab through the entire sketchbook halfway down from the top and through the fold of the sketchbook.  The phone book will hold everything in alignment and provide a place for your sharp gizmo to exit.  Easy peasy.  Now repeat that process an inch from the top and an inch from the bottom.  Voila, the “hard part” is done.

Let the sewing begin.  Use whatever thread you like but it should be fairly thick.  There are special bookbinding threads available but I just used several strands of cheap embroidery thread and a large embroidery needle.  There isn’t much to this…really.  It’s harder to explain it than to do it.  I’ve made a crude drawing of the thread path as an attempt to eliminate the proverbial 1000 words a picture replaces.  The green arrows are when the thread is outside the book; the red arrows indicate the thread inside the book.

There is one thing to note.  The thread going into the center of the book, and the thread coming out of the center of the book, should be on opposite sides of the long run of thread that goes from top to bottom on the outside of the book.

Once you do this threading, just grab the two ends of the thread and pull everything tight.  Then, tie a double knot in the two ends.  Notice that this will cinch down on that long thread running along the spine.  That’s why the ends need to be on opposite sides.  I hope that is more clear than it sounds (grin).

Cut off at least one of the loose ends.  Whether you cut the other end depends upon whether you want a long end to wrap around your sketchbook to keep it closed.  I did this for my mi-teinte paper book because this thicker paper doesn’t want to close completely flat.  I cut both ends on the brown paper sketchbook and then covered the entire spine with tape.  I think this actually provides a better, cleaner solution but to each his/her own.

So there you have it – how I made a couple of quicky sketchbooks.  Hope this helps someone.

 

 

Sketching Quebec City, One Building At A Time

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A couple things have happened recently that are causing me to rethink what I post on this blog.  The first was an email I got asking me why I wasn’t posting more of my sketches here.  The other thing is that Facebook is continuing to march out its horrible Timeline format, which makes posting sketches on Facebook very difficult unless you’re happy with postage-stamp size postings.

I started this blog to promote my mystery novels and I’ll continue to use it for that.  But, because I love fountain pens and because I’m learning to sketch, I’ve started doing posts about those topics as well.  As the email suggested, though, I have not posted most of my sketches here.  That’s going to change and while I’m not a prolific as a lot of sketchers, I hope I’ll be posting sketches regularly.  I’d like to hear any comments regarding my art, or what you’d like me to talk about as we head through spring and into summer sketching season.

To start that off, here are a couple of my latest building sketches.   Both were done in a Stillman & Birn Alpha series sketchbook.  I’ve been using these sketchbooks for a while and I love them.  These sketches were done in my new 10×7 (landscape format) spiral-bound sketchbook, though I generally prefer hardbound journals and S&B make some of the best.  But for outdoor sketching I really like the spiral-bound approach as I can fold it back, plunk it on my lap and draw.

Chez Madame Charlotte’s Restaurant

This has got to be one of the cutest restaurants in Quebec City.  Everytime I walk by it I think of Gary Larson cartoons.  The stairway of this sketch was the real challenge and having done one, if I’m made king I will ban them from my kingdom.

Stillman & Birn 10×7 Alpha; Lamy Safari w/Platinum Carbon Black; W&N watercolors

Les Colocs Restaurant

This is another restaurant in Limoilu, one of the older parts of Quebec City.  You can’t help but notice its colorful facade and this is the second time I’ve sketched it.  I was trying out a new pen, a Hero Calligraphy pen.  Works great but I used Noodler’s Black ink which, in spite of its ‘bulletproof’ label, is not waterproof enough to apply watercolor washes on top of it.

Stillman & Birn 10×7 Alpha; Hero Calligraphy pen w/Noodler’s Black; W&N watercolors

I hope you enjoy these and those I’ll be posting in the future.  Are you as excited as I am that the snow is gone and we can get out sketching again?

 

How Do You Choose A New Sketchbook?

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You can always tell a newbie sketcher.  We’re the ones playing 20 questions.  What pencil do you use?  What is the best brush for small watercolors?  What’s a good starting palette  for watercolors?  Lucky for us, artists are a friendly bunch.  They tolerate all these questions and patiently provide answers like “it depends,” which, of course, it does.

But no subject gets more discussion than do sketchbooks.  Will it open flat?  Will it handle washes?  Is the paper smooth or rough?  Will the binding hold up to being strapped to my boot?  Ok…I made that last one up but it’s only a slight exaggeration.

As a newbie I’m overwhelmed by the sketchbook question.  Initially I didn’t want one at all.  I figured that drawing on single sheets of paper would be better because I could throw all my screw ups in the garbage.  I still do that too much but several artists have said, “Hang on to your mistakes.  You’ll enjoy looking back to see your improvement.”  I’m still waiting for the improvement gene to kick in but their advice is sound.

So, I ran out and bought a small Moleskine sketchbook.  I carry it everywhere.  But it isn’t too friendly towards me slopping a watery sky wash on its pages so I bought a small Moleskine watercolor book.  It’s great and has heavy, cold-press watercolor paper.  You can do anything with it and while it’s pricey, I don’t see much point in skimping on artist materials.

Thus far, all my sketches have been very small.  3″ x 5″ is the largest I’ve done and most have been ATC size (2 1/2″ x 3.5″).  But I decided that I wanted to draw a bit larger so the hunt was on again.  The obvious choice would be the larger Moleskine watercolor book but the crazy landscape format really shows its downside when you flip open the big version and are faced with a 17″ wide book, with the part you’re working on representing half or less of the total weight of the book.  And so my search continued.

To quote U-2, I think I’ve found what I’ve been looking for.  I bought a Fabriano Venezia sketchbook and a Stillman & Birn Alpha series sketchbook.  I thought I’d provide a few impressions of these two sketchbooks, sort of a newbie view.  The summary first:  both are fine sketchbooks for someone like me who likes to do ink/watercolor sketches.

Name Size Pages Paper Wt Color
Stillman & Birn Alpha 5.5″x8.5″ 62 100lb – 150gsm white
Fabriano Venezia 6″x9″ 48 90lb – 200gsm cream

Size

Not much to say here.  They’re basically the same size, the S&B slightly smaller as the dimensions in the table suggest.  The pictures tell the tale.  Surprisingly, this small difference ‘felt’ like it mattered to me as the S&B sketchbook just feels better in my hand.  I thought this might be due to a weight difference so I weighed them.  The S&B is lighter at 436 grams, compared to the FV at 455 grams but with only 19 grams difference (less than an ounce for you Imperialists) that seems unlikely.  I guess it’s true; there’s no accounting for taste.

Page Count

There are significantly more pages in the Fabriano sketchbook.   Personal preference here but I prefer the thinner profile of the Stillman & Brin sketchbook so I’m willing to give up a few pages to get it.

Paper Wt.

Here’s where I grumble.  I grumble about the US unwillingness to accept international standards.  I grumble about paper graders and how these numbers become so muddled.  I’ll stick to this second thing.  How can art paper be heavier when using “lb” scaling and lighter when using “gsm” scaling?  It either is or it isn’t heavier.  Anyways, the Stillman & Birn Alpha paper is either heavier or lighter than the Fabriano sketchbook paper.  If one puts a micrometer on the paper, the Fabriano paper is slightly thicker.

Paper Color

The Stillman & Birn Alpha paper is bright white, while the Fabriano Venezia paper is cream-colored.  S&B do produce this same sketchbook with cream-colored paper.  It’s call their Gamma series.

General Impression

I don’t like the cover of the Fabriano Venezia.  It’s high-quality and I like the cloth end plate.  But the red blotchs… ugly.  The cover of the S&B books are much nicer, though one could say less flashy.

Neither of these sketchbooks open as flat as a Moleskine but the S&B does pretty well.  I think it would be difficult to draw across the gutter in the Fabriano book whereas it would much easier in the Stillman & Birn book

The Fabriano Venezia book comes with a bookmark ribbon, while the Stillman & Birn does not.  I can’t be without one of these in my writing notebooks.  I’m less certain about their necessity in a sketchbook.

Price

It’s always hard to know what to say about pricing.  It’s fine to cite retail price but the reality is that ‘street price’ is often quite different from retail price.  What I can tell you is that I paid several dollars less for my Stillman & Birn Alpha than I did for my Fabriano Venezia.  I don’t see price, however, to be a deciding parameter when buying a sketchbook except that I’ve learned that people with fountain pen fetishes like me shouldn’t buy cheap paper.  In my opinion, nobody should.

Usage

I haven’t done a lot of sketching in either of these sketchbooks, though I have done one sketch in my Stillman & Birn book.  What I did do was break the first page curse with some tests.  It’s actually the second page, I guess but I wanted to save the first page for a table of contents once I fill the book.

I tried to keep my pencil stroke and pressure consistent across both notebooks but I’m not sure I was able to do so.  It may be that the Fabriano book has a bit more tooth to it than the Stillman and Birn Alpha book.  Both take pencil well and both are smooth enough not to bother any pointed instruments.

I chose a couple popular fountain pens (Lamy & Noodler’s Flex) and Noodler’s waterproof inks as those inks are what I use.  In hindsight I should have included a washable ink but I didn’t think of it at the time.

I’ve been playing with Tombow pens. These are juicy water-soluble pens and I thought if anything would bleed through, these would.  Both sketchbooks take the colors well and there was no bleed-through in either sketchbook.  The same was true for the watercolor blotches, which I applied fairly wet as a heavy wash.

There is some shading with both sketchbook which might be a problem if you scan your drawings for posting in forums.  I need to experiment with real sketches to see whether this is a real problem or not.

Conclusion

It’s probably premature to draw conclusions that will stick.  Both of these sketchbooks perform well.  They do what they were designed to do.   But I did decide to use the Stillman & Brin Alpha while the Fabriano Venezia is sitting in a drawer.  I just like the Stillman & Brin better.  Here’s the first sketch I did in my new Sketchbook.