

(Doesn’t seem to be sized very well for watercolor work, which greatly affects color brilliance.) Hand Book Journal - Not good with fountain pens (they catch and skip), but nice for drawing and a little watercolor. Paper does wrinkle and you can see through to reverse side. Okay for pencil drawings, some ink and light wash.

Fabriano Classic Artist’s Journal - Texture is disturbing to me, paper is too thin and feels flimsy. Fabriano Venezia (not to be confused with the flimsy paper in the other Fabriano books) - Great paper, my favorite so far, very slight wrinkling with water media, wonderful with pen and ink, but doesn’t like to stay all the way open like a Moleskine will do. Why have a stitch bound book if you want to remove pages? Those who use stitched bindings do so to insure their work will stay together as a volume, and the perforations make that less likely. Moleskine Watercolor Book - Paper isn’t quite heavy enough, nice with ink and light watercolors, but the perforated pages are a deal breaker for me. Very nice with ink, gouache, colored pencil.

Moleskine Sketchbook - Heavy weight, but repels watercolor a bit and it beads up. Here’s my take on some of the stitch bound candidates: I’ve found a couple of stitch bound books that will do, but none that I’m really crazy about. How come all the really great, heavy paper that can take a lot of water media only comes WIRE BOUND? This drives me insane.
