Last Christmas I received three sketchbooks from Arteza. They don't seem to be as readily available as before, I could only find the same ones here. These are 5.5x5.5 inch so approximately 14x14 cm.
So far I have only completed one of the sketchbooks, but I think they work pretty well, specially given the price. These sketchbooks are made of watercolor 110lb (230gsm) cold-press, so these work fine with most water media. Below are some examples (from left to right): pen and watercolor, just watercolors and water-soluble graphite.
I would say that from all the drawings I have done in the sketchbook - and it was actually quite a few, since it has 88 pages! - it definitely works the best with these media.
I would say that it also works very well with acrylics/gouache and color pencils. But for water-soluble pencils (watercolor pencils, inktense pencils, etc) it does not seem to work so well. After diluting some of the watercolor pencil lines, the paper didn't responde so well to a second application of pencil. The pencil just seem to have hard time adhering to the paper. This does not happen for color pencil over watercolor pencil, in this case I didn't have any trouble.
Actually the first image below is done exactly like that - I applied first a layer of inktense pencils, and then diluted them with some water, after this I applied a few layers of color pencil on top. The middle image is done with just inktense pencils, I would say that it is also difficult to dilute the pencil strokes even if you scrub hard with the brush. The image below on the right was done with acrylic gouache.
To my surprise these sketchbooks also seem to work pretty well with oil pastels (image below to the right). It is also easy to use dry pastels on these sketchbooks, although for this I would recommend using a ground like Schmincke Pastel Primer or Golden Acrylic Ground for Pastel (or something similar). You could still do it without the ground, but you'll be very limited in the number of layers of pastels you can apply. While using both a ground and some fixative, you can apply easily 5 layers of pastel in these sketchbooks. It also won't smudge the drawing, since the pages stay pretty much in place (the biding is quite sturdy).
I have also tried the graphitint pencils from Derwent (below, left image). These seem to apply better than watercolor/inktense pencils, I was actually able to apply several layers. Lastly I have tried also Indian ink, which also worked great, so I am considering using one of the three sketchbooks to InkOctober.
So overall I would say the advantages of these sketchbooks are:
Decent paper at a low cost
Plenty of pages in each sketchbook
Sold in value packs
Good behavior with most media - wet and dry
Sturdy bidding
Disadvantages:
Does not take well wet on wet techniques;
Paper absorves water media a bit too fast;
Strange behavior with water-soluble pencils;
Size is a bit too small, not particularly useful for larger studies.
Worked best with the following media (from best to worst):
Watercolors/Acrylics/Gouache;
Pen & Watercolors;
Water-soluble graphite;
Oil Pastels;
Graphitint (Derwent);
Dry Pastels;
Watercolor/Inktense pencils;
Graphite/Charcoal.
I would recommend these sketchbooks if you want plenty of paper to practice different techniques. For the price these are excellent, and as I have shown here, even if you use more dry media like pastels, you can definitely adapt them and use them for that purpose. These are very versatile sketchbooks at almost an unbeatable price.
Now that I have completled one of the sketchbooks, I think I will be trying the Arteza larger sketchbooks, since these allow for larger studies.
Hope this was useful!
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