This is my latest favorite find in the “Artists’ Facsimile Sketchbooks” category: Hilma Af Klint Notes and Methods. I saw it for sale at the McNally Jackson bookshop in NYC and it’s full of lots of great reproductions of full notebook spreads.
I saw the Hilma Af Klint exhibition at the Guggenheim a few months ago and found it quite interesting. They had a couple of her notebooks on display, as well as some additional images in a timeline, and I snapped these photos:
Great story about a sketchbook that went astray for 36 years! In 1983, Thomas Thospecken set off on a cross-country journey, intending to document his travels in sketchbooks and journals. He lost one of them along the way, but decades later, the person who found it managed to return it to him!
Artist Thomas Thorspecken, known for his sketches of Orlando, was reunited with a notebook lost when he was in teens in New Jersey.
Read the full story: Sketchbook, lost 36 years ago in New Jersey, is reunited with local artist
I love coming across other people’s art journals, especially presented in spreads of thumbnail pages:
This is from Wings of Judas, the website of Judas Bardon. You can click to zoom in on each page via this link. The home page seems to be down so there isn’t a lot of other info about the artist’s background, but you can see other journals and artworks via this link.
When I posted my first Hahnemühle sketchbooks review several years ago, the brand wasn’t that easy to find in the US, except for their artist papers. Fortunately, this has changed and Hahnemühle sketchbooks are now more widely available at Amazon, Blick and other retailers. The company contacted me to offer some samples of their various sketchbooks, so let’s take a look at all these goodies!
First off, the Watercolour Book. This is an “A6″ (actual dimensions 4 1/4 x 6 1/16”) portrait sketchbook with a lightly textured 200 GSM watercolor paper. I love the unusual textured charcoal grey cloth they used on the cover. At 60 pages, it is nicely slim, and even though the size is a little larger than my usual favorite size, it has attractive proportions and offers a little more real estate on the page while still being very portable. I tested my Winsor and Newton artist grade watercolors and the paper held up well, with no significant buckling. Colors are vibrant, and the pens I tested worked well too. The list price is $17.49, and Amazon currently has it available at $14.00. (Buy at Amazon. Other sizes and landscape orientation also available.)
Next is the Report & Art Book. I guess the name indicates it is a reporter style top opening notebook, but the paper inside is plain, so it can be used in landscape format as well. The red stitching adds a cute detail to the exterior. One other distinguishing characteristic is the fold-back cover. Inside are 64 sheets of 130 GSM paper with a fairly smooth texture. The pocket in the back is a bit small compared to the size of the notebook, which again is said to be A6, but is actually 4 3/8 x 5 15/16″. This paper is toothier and I found it a bit rough an draggy with fountain pens, but they are certainly useable, and didn’t bleed or feather. The Acculiner and Super Sharpie did bleed a little, and I saw more show-through on this paper than with the other sketchbooks in this review. But I still think it’s a pretty good paper for basic sketching with most pencils or pens. The prices I’m seeing online for this are around $20 and up, which seems a bit high to me compared to some of the other items in this review. (Amazon only seems to have the A5 size.)
The Nostalgie Sketch Book, appropriately, has a very classic feel with a squared off spine and squared corners. (A6, but dimensions are 4 3/8 x 6″) The cover is wrapped with a grey textured paper that sort of has the look of a coarse woven fiber. This has 80 pages of 190 GSM paper with a smooth texture designed for finely detailed ink drawings. I loved the feel of writing in this sketchbook– fountain pens work beautifully, and nothing bleeds through, except for a little spot where I held the Acculiner in place for 5 seconds. This is one of the best papers I’ve tested for show-through, bleed-through, and fountain pen friendliness. The list price for this size is $16.95. (Buy at Amazon. Other sizes also available.)
The Grey Book is aptly titled, as the cover is grey and the inside pages are also grey. The cover features a sort of wood-grain texture but you see the fibers in the paper, so it also sort of looks like grey flannel. It is an A5 size (6 x 8 7/16″), with 80 pages of smooth 120 GSM paper. I was happy to have a chance to play with my white gel ink pen and marker, as well as using black and white pastels to create shading and highlights. Obviously colored fountain pen inks are not the intended use, but most fountain pens will work pretty well on this paper with zero bleed-through or show-through, but maybe a tiny bit of feathering with really wet inks. I’ve seen prices online ranging from $7.50 to $15 for this size. (Buy at Amazon: A5 or A4. They also make a version with light brown paper, called the Cappuccino Book.)
Finally we have the Diary Flex. This notebook features a refillable cover. Inserts can be purchased with blank, lined or dotted pages. The design is quite attractive, with a black faux-leather textured cover and red accents. The inside of the cover has slots for business cards or credit cards, and papers can be tucked in the front and back cover pockets. The top and bottom of the spine are notched so that the headband of the insert shows– this may make the spine less likely to wear at the corners but I can’t decide if I like it. I also don’t love how the elastic closure is anchored at the spine– this leaves the loop flapping around with no place to tuck it out of the way. The paper inside is very smooth, with an ivory tone. At 100 GSM, it feels quite substantial as you turn the pages. The paper feels very smooth and I expected fountain pens to do really well, and for the most part, they did. Just a tiny bit of bleed and feathering only when pressing down to really flex the nib.
The cover and its included refill sell for around $16-20 at most retailers, and the refill notebooks alone are around $7. These seem like a good value, but I’m not sure if the cover is special enough to merit refilling. I do like it, and it seems sturdy enough to last a while, but to me, the point of a refillable notebook is to have a cover made of leather or something that will break in and become more loveable over time, like a Filofax or a Traveler’s Notebook. The refills can’t be used on their own unless you want to look at a very unfinished cardboard exterior with mesh on the spine. But maybe there are other covers that would be compatible? The size is about 4 1/2 x 7 1/2″, so it is an unusual size, but maybe close enough to a Travelers Notebook if you don’t mind a wider cover overhang. (Buy at Amazon.)
All of these Hahnemühle notebooks feel really solidly made, with good attention to detail. They all have more cover overhang than I personally prefer, but everything is symmetrical and squared off and the construction seems precise and high quality. And because Hahnemühle is first and foremost a paper company, they know how to deliver specific paper types that will please artists as well as casual users. Like Stillman and Birn, Hahnemühle offers different textures, weights and colors to work with a range of art media. For me, the Nostalgie and Watercolour books will definitely be in my to-be-used pile, and the Grey Book will also be fun for more experimentation. I’m really pleased with these Hahnemühle sketchbooks and look forward to seeing more of their products in the US market. Check out their website for more details on their various offerings.
The folks at Hahnemühle also sent me a pack of their Travel Booklets (they’re part of my review from a few years ago), which I will be giving away to a lucky reader:
The giveaway prize is this brand-new, in-wrapper two-pack of Travel Booklets, plus, as a bonus, I will throw in the Diary Flex and Report & Art notebooks tested in this review– just a couple of pages in the back have been used for my pen tests, but they are otherwise in like-new condition.
I will pick one winner from entries received in any of these ways:
On Twitter, tweet something containing “Hahnemühle Sketchbooks @NotebookStories @Hahnemuehleâ€, and follow @NotebookStories and @hahnemuehle
On Facebook, “like†the Notebook Stories page and the Hahnemuhle page, and post something containing the words “Hahnemühle Sketchbooks†on the Notebook Stories page.
On Instagram, follow @Notebook.Stories and @Hahnemuehle_global and comment on my Hahnemühle giveaway post, tagging a friend and adding a hashtag of your favorite adjective describing the Hahnemühle notebook. (Example: “@myfriendsally #fountainpenfriendlyâ€)
On your blog, post something containing the words “Hahnemühle Sketchbooks†and “Notebook Stories†and link back to this post, also leaving a comment below with the link in case the trackback doesn’t work.
Please note that the prize can only be shipped to a US address. The deadline for entry is Friday June 14, 2019 at 11:59PM, EST. Please allow a couple of weeks for me to announce a winner. Good luck everyone!
Sometimes I see a notebook and just think, “Ugh. Why??” Here is an example:
A notebook dedicated to composing Twitter tweets in 3 drafts? I guess it could be a good gag gift for someone but otherwise it seems like a waste of paper to me!
If you disagree, you can buy one here!
My Modern Met interviews a talented artist whose notebooks are a constant companion as he travels the world. Adam Hackländer’s travel journals have a style very similar to (and probably inspired by) José Naranja’s notebooks:
In the age of everything digital, Hackländer’s handcrafted keepsakes offer a more deliberate and thoughtful form of remembering his journeys. He’s not mindlessly snapping photos only to forget what they mean later on. He records everything from the currency exchange rate to the brilliant red-orange sun over a temple in Kyoto, Japan. No matter how mundane or amazing, the combination of pictures and words give his experiences some context so that he can return to them again and again. “Nothing beats the feeling when you read an old journal and recall everything you’ve done,†Hackländer tells My Modern Met.
Read more at My Modern Met: Interview: How an Avid Traveler Chronicles His Adventures Through Illustrated Journals
You can see more of Adam Hackländer’s travel journals on his Instagram feed.
I came across an article from The Economist about a new exhibition at the British Library, which sounds great: it’s all about the history of writing and note-taking. The article is behind a paywall, unfortunately, but here’s a taste:
NEATLY HANDWRITTEN, with a simple diagram below a numbered list, the sheet looks like any fussy hobbyist’s record of some cranky project in a garden shed. This, though, is a page taken from a hospital bacteriologist’s lab notebooks in December 1928. A few weeks previously, the researcher had found by chance that a common-as-muck fungus had contaminated his experiment but seemed to be purging bacteria. This sheet confirms that Penicillium, that nasty old mould that thrives in damp, has thoroughly zapped the streptococcus bacteria in a blood sample. Within 15 years, Alexander Fleming’s discovery at St Mary’s Hospital in London had—thanks to biochemists Ernst Chain and Howard Florey—led to effective penicillin treatment. It would inaugurate the antibiotic revolution, save tens of millions of lives and even (in some accounts) help win the second world war after its supply to Allied forces after D-Day.Â
At the British Library (BL), Fleming’s modest but epoch-making notes sit alongside a selection of other illustrious scrawls as part of the exhibition “Writing: Making Your Mark .
Source: The Economist: The Magic of Notebooks
The exhibition runs until August 27, 2019. Find out more at the British Library website.
If you love looking at other people’s travel journals, check out Notes from the Road. Erik Gauger has traveled to some amazing places, and filled lots of travel journals with sketches and notes.
Instead of carrying around dozens of heavy guidebooks when I travel, I condense my useful information into a small size Moleskine travel journal.
I use Moleskine journals to organize all my travel ideas, travel plans, make notes, record my conversations, draw travel sketches, make notes on animal plants, and draw people and street scenes.
You can see more of his journals here, but be sure to check out the rest of his travel blog, which is more long-form writing and incredible photography.
One of these days, I will use one of the Paperblanks notebooks I’ve been hoarding. I have a few of them that I’ve picked up over the years (usually during a once a year visit to a wonderful little bookshop in Lewes, Delaware called Biblion), and I’m always very impressed by their quality. I’m also shocked that I don’t see more buzz about them from the fountain pen community, as some of them have wonderful paper.
This Paperblanks notebook is the Solis Mini, from a series called Nova Stella. It is designed to look like an antique leather bound book with gold embossing. What makes it even more elegant is the faux marbling on the page edges! It feels like a sumptuous hand-bound book– up to a point, at least. The cover material is smooth and not leathery, but there is embossing all over that gives it a nice texture. The look is spoiled a bit when you use the elastic closure– I would have used a different color, maybe gold or brown, so it would clash less than the black does. But the nice thing about Paperblanks elastics is that they tuck away invisibly next to the back pocket when you’re not using them.
At 240 pages, which is higher than usual for a pocket size notebook, it is chunky and has a nice weight to it, without being so heavy you wouldn’t want to carry it around. The spine is rounded and the page edges follow this curve. In the photos below, the black notebook is a pocket size Moleskine for comparison.
There are black and white headbands that seem to be integrated into the sewing of the binding, which is very unusual for notebooks these days. Usually the headbands are glued on bits of braided yarn and you can see the frayed edges where they are just cut at the ends– what is supposed to mimic a fine bookbinding detail ends up looking cheap and tacky. But in the Paperblanks notebook, they seem tightly woven in to a sturdy, reinforced spine, though I’d have to dissect the whole notebook to really figure out how it’s made. And once more, I do wish they had used a different color for the headbands!
One other thing I really like about the exterior: very minimal cover overhang, with tight corners.
Inside, there are brown endpapers, and a red ribbon marker (which, again, might have been nicer in gold). Inside the back cover is an expanding pocket, and a note about the inspiration for the design. I really like how they give you this background on the historical source.
The paper inside is creamy white and feels thicker than average. No paper weight is specified on the notebook, but the Paperblanks website says it is 120 GSM. It is unlined, which I have found hard to find in Paperblanks displays in stores, where most of their notebooks seem to be lined. This paper is really great and truly fountain pen friendly, with no bleed or feathering and a nice glow to colored inks. Show-through and bleed-through are much less than average in general.
The paper is so good, I decided to also test some watercolors to see how this would work as a sketchbook. The paper actually does fine with light use of watercolors– it buckled when it was wet but flattened out after it dried and the notebook had been closed for a few minutes. I wouldn’t recommend a lot of scrubby wet brushwork in this notebook but it will do fine with moderate use of watercolors or markers– I also tested some grey Pitt Artist Pens at the bottom of the watercolor page. (You can see the back of the watercolor test page facing the front of the fountain pen test page.)
Note: not all Paperblanks notebooks use this same paper. Their reporter style notebooks offer a grid page option, but the paper is only 80 GSM– I’ve tested one and it did not perform as well as the Solis. Also see 2013 Paperblanks notebook review here– another unlined paper that did well with fountain pens. Other Paperblanks notebooks range from 80 to 100 or 120 GSM, so if you are looking at buying one, check their website to see which paper is inside.)
The suggested retail price on this notebook is $16.95, which is slightly higher than average for most hardcover journals this size. But to me the extra page count, fountain pen friendly paper and high quality construction make it worth the price. And as of this writing the mini size is only $13.63 on Amazon. Other sizes are also available.
I really love the Paperblanks Nova Stella Solis notebook and will be keeping a closer eye on what Paperblanks is up to. My personal preference tends to be more minimal cover designs but when I see things like this Solis design or the Old Leather notebook I bought years ago, I am inspired to mix things up and add a little more pizzazz to my collection! This one is definitely going in the “use someday” pile.
If you are an astrology buff and a notebook addict, this article at Book Riot is for you:
Find the perfect zodiac notebooks and zodiac journals with this guide to all things star signs, moon signs, and more.
Here’s a few of my favorites, all from Etsy sellers:
Source: Your Horoscope Says You Need Zodiac Notebooks | Book Riot