I finished off the HQ Fine Stroke Sketch Draw that I picked up from Philadelphia based discounter Five Below. The price was right, and I liked the pad’s size of 5.5 inches by 8.5 inches as well as the wire binding being placed along one of the short ends, but the paper wasn’t anything to write home about. It is probably repurposed copier paper that seemed to have a slightly slick surface that resisted really rich blacks from my pencils. It was a disaster with ink and other wet media. It was fine for notes, thumbnails and gestural drawings.
As I do with most of my sketchbooks, I encrusted this one with stickers. This pad had a particularly odious manga style illustration adorning its cover that begged to be buried or defaced. Fortunately I eat a lot of fruit and had access to plenty of stickers.
I punched the images up a bit with an image editor after I scanned them. Usually pencil particularly in this sketchbook needs a little levels adjustment to increase the contrast.
It definitely wasn’t a Sketchbook from Heaven. I felt no pangs of loss as I exhausted its last few pages. It did not have that weird, joyous energy baked into its pages as the other sketchbooks had. It was merely a utilitarian scratch pad.
Better luck next time!
Thanks!