As I noted in a recent “using now” post, I recently swapped out my usual Moleskine Sketchbook for a Leda Art Supply pocket sketchbook. If I’m adding something to my daily carry, you can probably guess that I’m going to give it a positive review, but even if the suspense is lacking, let’s take a look at the details!
I discovered the Leda Art Supply sketchbook completely by chance while browsing around on Amazon. I see a lot of random notebook brands there that I’ve never heard of or seen in stores, and I tend to assume they are lower quality items that are just trying to piggyback onto searches and catch people’s eyes as a bargain priced version of better-known brands. But the description of the Leda sketchbook made me think it was worth a try, and the photos looked appealing.
At first glance, you can see that the Leda sketchbook differs from the typical plain black hardcover. The cover is grey, made of some sort of soft faux-leather with a cross-hatched texture. The cover is quite flexible, and the whole sketchbook bends enough to be comfortably carried in a pocket. The 3.5 x 5.5′ shape is the same as a pocket Moleskine, but it is thicker and the spine is somewhat more rounded. There is a little cover overhang, but not so much as to really bother me.
There are red and white headbands– the color contrast seemed a bit incongruous to me, but it’s not a big deal. I don’t love the big debossed logo on the front cover– I usually prefer smaller logos on the back cover, but since this one is black on grey, it at least doesn’t stand out too glaringly. The sketchbook has an elastic closure, but no ribbon marker. Overall, the exterior is not my absolute ideal but it strikes a nice balance– it isn’t quite as nice as some higher-end hardcover sketchbooks, but it has better features and a nicer feel than the very bare-bones exterior of a Stillman & Birn softcover sketchbook.
Inside, there is no other branding and the endpapers and pages are totally plain. There is an expanding back pocket. There are 8 sewn signatures of 81lb paper. The signatures are sewn with 13 stitches along the entire length of the spine– in a Moleskine there are usually only two or three widely spaced stitches. The pages open totally flat.
At 160 pages, the Leda offers twice as much space as a Moleskine sketchbook, but the paper is not as heavy as Moleskine’s card stock pages. (It is still heavier than regular Moleskine paper.) The color is a warm off-white, similar to a Moleskine sketchbook. The texture is smooth, but slightly less so than Moleskine. The paper is advertised as working with pencil, ink, pen, pastel, charcoal and light water color wash, and I found that to be true. Pages get a little wavy when you use watercolor across large areas, but they’ll flatten out again once they are dried and the notebook is closed. Another nice thing is that watercolor doesn’t bead up on this paper, as I’ve found it often does in a Moleskine. Fountain pens work great on this paper– on my test page, none of them bled or feathered, though in the course of daily use, I did get a little bleed-through on overlapping lines when using pressure to flex the nib of another pen that tends to write somewhat wet. Other pens work well too, definitely less bleed-through and show-through than average notebooks. It is somewhat comparable in bleed-through/show-through performance to the Stillman & Birn Epsilon paper, though the Epsilon is a much brighter cool white.
Below is the back of the watercolor test page:
This is the back of the pen test page:
Below are comparisons with a Hobonichi Techo page– not a direct sketchbook competitor, but I’ve been using it in most of my reviews lately as a reference for fountain pen performance.
As for price, I think the Leda Sketchbook is a good value– the price on Amazon seems to fluctuate, and a single pocket sketchbook is currently $13.90, but as of this writing you can get a 2-pack for $17.89 ($8.94 each) or a 3-pack for $26.97 ($8.99 each). I am have sometimes seen the single sketchbook for less (I paid $9.94 for mine, but I bought it in December 2016), so keep checking back if you don’t want to buy more than one. Medium, Large and Extra-Large sizes are also available, with various multi-packs at good prices.
So, no surprise, I think this is a great little sketchbook. It can also work well as a journal, as the pages are smooth enough for writing. I’ve been using mine for almost 3 weeks now and it’s holding up well so far– no sign of any loose signatures or undue wear to the cover. Stay tuned to see how it’s going whenever I post a “using now” update!
