Review: Stillman & Birn Softcover Sketchbooks

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Larry Marshall

When I got into sketching, about four years ago, I found it pretty easy to find quality pens, pencils, brushes and watercolors. What was harder was to find a sketchbook that could accommodate pen, ink and watercolor. It seemed that I was buying a new sketchbook every week in an attempt to ‘try another’ in my quest for the perfect sketchbook.

My first post about Stillman & Birn sketchbooks was in December of 2011. A few other artists had discovered them and were really excited by them. I’d just gotten one and was very new to sketching so it was hard for me to evaluate it except to say that I liked it.

My first real discussion of S&B came in March of 2013, after I’d had some time to fall in love with their products. At that point I’d done a lot of sketching on their Alpha series paper and had just bought one of the Epsilon series sketchbooks. If you read that post you’ll get the impression that I worked as a sales rep for S&B but I do not.

In the future my daughter is going to be faced with the task of taking my sketchbooks to the landfill. When she does this, I suspect my pile of Stillman & Birn sketchbooks will be even larger. These are the ones I've filled in the past 3 years.

In the future my daughter is going to be faced with the task of taking my sketchbooks to the landfill. When she does, I suspect my pile of Stillman & Birn sketchbooks will be even larger. These are the ones I’ve filled in the past 3 years. Several others are ‘in progress’.

Since then I’ve been filling S&B sketchbooks at an alarming rate. I’ve tried not only Alpha and Epsilon papers but also their Beta, Zeta and Gamma sketchbooks. You can find reviews of these sketchbooks if you search for those words here. I have a lot of experience with Stillman & Birn products, and I can’t imagine using anything else.

But there’s been one sketchbook format that S&B hadn’t provided me, until now. I’ve whined to them about it enough that you’d think they would have made some just to shut me up. It’s a small (3×5) portrait format book that has paper good enough (interpretation = Alpha paper) to accept my scribbles and watercolor smears. Because this has not been forthcoming from S&B, I’ve been making do with crappy books from the dollar store, Field Notes, small (?) Visual Journals, Moleskines, etc. At this point I’ve filled 27 of the darned things. You’d think I’d know how to draw by now with all that scribbling. Maybe in another 20 years.

Anyways, Stillman & Birn has just released the solution to my small sketchbook needs, and then some. The photo above shows just a few of the many format/paper combinations available in this new series. All of the S&B’s paper types are available and each has its cover color-coded for that paper type (Alpha = burnt sienna (red?), Beta = blue, Epsilon = gray, Delta = green, Gamma = brown, Zeta = black). They’re available as 3.5×5.5 and 5.5×8.5 portrait or landscape format and in 8×10 portrait format.

I like the cover material. It feels almost like leather, though it is obviously not. It’s stiffer than the Strathmore softcover books, a plus for a street sketcher like me. The papers are the same great papers you can find in their hardcover books so I’m not going to talk about them. You can find my opinions by searching for the reviews on this blog but so far I haven’t found any that I don’t like. I use Alpha and Beta almost exclusively though.

Stillman and Birn have obviously tried to provide lighter and thinner sketchbooks compared to their hardcover books and in that they have succeeded in a big way. Here are a few comparison numbers:

Hardcover Softcover

Alpha 5×8 419gm 232gm
Beta 5×8 354gm 267gm

The thickness of a 5×8 Alpha hardcover is 18mm while the Alpha softcover is a svelte 10mm. In short, these new books are much lighter and thinner than their hardcover counterparts.

Here is my favorite. I’m showing it before I took the shrinkwrap off because now that I’ve opened it there is some drool on the front cover. It’s a small, Alpha-series portrait-format book. Many who use the Moleskine watercolor books have complained that Moleskine doesn’t produce it in a portrait format. I used to be one of them, but no more. I now have my small sketchbook need satiated, or at least it will be when I place an order for a bunch more of these little guys.

Do you need/want the softcover versions of Stillman & Birn sketchbooks? It depends. It depends upon whether weight matters to you. If you carry a single sketchbook and not very far, then giving up those nice hardcover bindings might not make sense. I carry several sketchbooks and regularly carry them during two-hour walks so cutting the weight nearly in half is a big deal for me.

Are you ever bothered by the thickness of your sketchbook, say when you’re trying to draw along the edge where you have no support for your hand? Do you wish the book were thinner when trying to draw across the gutter during early or late sections of the book, where one page is bent downward to reach the table due to the thickness of the book? If these things bother you, maybe having a book that’s half as thick would make you happy. Beware, though, this comes at a cost. While the covers reduce the thickness, the softcovers are also made thinner by a reduction of page count (in Alpha the hardcovers have 62 sheets while the softcovers have 48). I find this a small price to pay to get what I want in the small-size book.

There is one downside to these softcover books. They use the same double-stitched, glued bindings of their hardcover counterparts and the glue sometimes wicks between the signatures (the small groups of sheets that are folded and sewn together) and they tend to stick the base of the two pages between two signatures together. I don’t find this to be a problem with Alpha, and probably not with the other 150gsm paper books. Their pages fold open just fine. But with the Beta (270gsm) and probably Delta and Zeta books, the paper tends to separate slightly at the gutter when you fold open a section where two signatures come together (6 places in a Beta series book). This separation is very tight in the gutter of the two-page spread and if you’re working on either side of the gutter, it’s not a problem at all. But if you want to do a two-page spread, it can create an ugly gutter seam.

I’m thrilled with these new softcovers. I’ve only drawn a couple things in them thus far but I know the papers well and have documented their use in pretty much all the drawings presented on this blog. The softcovers, like Stillman & Birn’s hardcover and spiral-bound books, are great options for the urban sketcher or nature journalist. I feel lucky to live in a time when we sketchers have so many great choices, and all from one company – Stillman & Birn.

Two Sketchbooks For The Price Of One

Posted on July 22, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Since I’ve been in a ‘cheap sketchbook’ rut lately, I thought it only fitting if I were to let it run its course and describe another approach I’ve taken, for when being able to stuff the book in one’s pocket isn’t important.

Sometimes I want to do larger quick-sketches are possible in a 3 x 5 “scribbler.” I could do them in one of my Stillman & Birn books but my quick-sketches are REALLY quick-sketches and typically they’re not very good, so I want REALLY cheap paper upon which to do them. Also, as I’m not doing watercolor I don’t need the paper quality of Stillman & Birn.

You can buy inexpensive 5×8 and 6×9 sketchbooks that have 60lb paper and are fine for such things. I’ve used Strathmore’s “Sketch” books for this purpose. They’ve got paper covers and cost $6-7 here. They’re fine. They work. Lots of people use them. Canson has equivalent offerings.

But one day, while I was padding around the art store touching everything, I saw 8.5 x 11, spiral-bound, hardcover sketchbooks (60lb paper) on sale for $8.

This is Fabriano's version of an 8.5x11 sketchbook. I paid $9.99CDN for it. Sometimes they're on sale.

This is Fabriano’s version of an 8.5×11 sketchbook. I paid $9.99CDN for it. Sometimes they’re on sale.

And I wondered. I wondered enough to buy one. I wondered enough to take it home and go into my ~~dungeon~~, err, workshop. I even wondered if I was nuts for doing it but a few seconds later I’d run that sketchbook through my bandsaw, creating two 5.5 x 9 sketchbooks.

If you don’t own a bandsaw, I bet you know someone who does.

Cutting them does leave bare cardboard edges on one side of each book but that’s easily fixed with a fat Sharpie marker. When bought on sale these cost me $4 each and provide 160 sheets of sketching fun.

One caveat about the cutting. You can cut right through the spiral binding and it will generally work (depends on saw and blade I suppose but even my wood blades worked fine). The potential exists, though, that the spiral will get bent at the point of the cut. It’s really easy, though, to use some wire nippers to cut the spiral in the middle, removing a small section of it before cutting the book. Otherwise, this is one of those no-brainer thingies that one can do to produce nice quick-sketchbooks in a more typical size than the ones I’ve been talking about recently. Here’s some lines I made in such a book while watching Paul Heaston’s class on Craftsy.

Yvan and I use these all the time when we go to music recitals or quick-sketch in places where we’re carrying our art bags and don’t have to worry about being inconspicuous as we sketch. Give it a try.

Field Notes Workman’s Companion Edition

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Larry Marshall

I do a lot of sketching in tiny, inexpensive sketchbooks and ever since Marc Taro Holmes suggested using a Moleskine staple-bound notebook, I’ve been trying different notebooks in this 3×5 format. I was very displeased by the Moleskines as ink bleeds through their thin paper. So far, every book I’ve tried has that problem. I’m not talking about ghosting, where you can see the sketch on the backside but ink that actually shows up on the back of the page. While ghosting is also a problem in most of the notebooks, I’m more tolerant of that as my goal with these books isn’t high-quality sketches.

But FINALLY, I’ve found what I’ve been looking for and it comes in the form of the new Field Notes Workshop Companion issue. Field Notes are fun because they’re sold in a variety of cover formats. The problem with them is that they typically use 50lb, inexpensive paper and they’re just not fountain pen friendly. If you draw with ballpoint pens, they’re fine and very convenient. But I’m a fountain pen addict and it’s a no go as a sketching substrate.

The Workshop Companion books are different. They come with a new, 70lb paper that’s a higher quality than even the couple issues they’ve produced with 70lb paper in the past. I find I can force ghosting to the point of being annoying but it requires that I really dump a lot of ink on the page. So far I’ve yet to get any bleedthrough, even with brush pens. I’ve even applied bits of watercolor to the paper and even that works pretty well.

My first test was a simple outline image, done with a Platinum Carbon Pen and Platinum Carbon ink. This was a ‘soft’ test as most of these kinds of notebooks will handle this combination, though in this case there was no ghosting whatever, which was an improvement.

I went out sketching and did these quick sketches. My goal was to try adding some dark shading to see what happens. This is where most books in this format fail, with both bleedthrough and ghosting. Here there still wasn’t any bleedthrough and you had to look hard to see ghosting. Scanning didn’t pick up any of the ghosting.

No special tests here but I was drawing with my Namiki Falcon and De Atramentis Document Black and again, there was no bleedthrough and ghosting was hard to see.

I was doodling while watching a baseball game and dragged this image up from my imagination. It’s got enough darks in it to really test for bleedthrough and ghosting. Ghosting can be seen but again, it’s minimal.

I thought I’d do the acid test. I was watching some guys playing soccer and started drawing this building that was at one end of the soccer pitch. I added some darks with a Kuretake #33 brush pen and then added some color. Still no bleed through. Ghosting is a bit worse but everything’s relative as the ghosting doesn’t get picked up when scanning the backside of this sketch.

In conclusion, I’m a happy camper and I’ll be ordered some more of these Workshop Companion books. They’re wonderful. I can shove them in a shirt pocket if I want but more often I have it in a front pouch in my sketching bag so it’s immediately available.

While I can sketch in these books fine, when sketching a 2-page spread it’s nice to have something to hold the book open and flat without having to fiddle around. I solved that by cutting a small piece of Fomecore, which weighs nothing and I clip the book to this backing board. It works surprisingly well and really makes holding the book a lot easier.

This is what it looks like when clipped to the board. It becomes a single unit where you don’t have to worry about keeping the paper flat.

Tina Koyama Limited Edition Sketchbook

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Larry Marshall

I’m a lucky guy. Tina Koyama sent me one of her small sketchbooks. She makes these from light watercolor paper and endows them with creative covers. Now that I’ve used one, I know why all photos of her exhibit a big smile.

I’ve only done half a dozen sketches in this 4×6 book but it’s really fun to use and the paper holds up nicely to my pointy devices. It’s a single 5-sheet signature, providing 20, 4×6 sketch surfaces in a very small, light footprint.

My first use was to quickly sketch this odd metal sculpture. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to represent but I guess it represents it. No matter, it gave me a chance to scribble in the book and slop on a bit of watercolor.

And then it rained. It’s still acting like spring here and I was cloistered behind windows, limiting both my spirits and sketching subjects.

Across the street was this digger, so I drew it. I should have turned the book and drawn across the long dimension but I didn’t so this image is pretty small. Still, it was fun to let the Namiki Falcon wander around for a while.

This last sketch was done while I was out for a long walk. For some reason I was in the mood for a large scene when I walked through the park at Pointe de Lievre, so I plunked my butt on a picnic bench and quickly sketched this and used a waterbrush filled with dilute ink to shade it a bit. I deemed it a good use of 15 minutes.

I’m really enjoying Tina’s tiny sketchbook. I’m not sure she has convinced me to spend a lot of time making my own as I’d need to make a lot of them given the way I use small sketchbooks, but she’s nudged me a bit closer to the edge.

My Stillman & Birn Quest

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Larry Marshall

One of the expenses of living in Quebec City is shipping. I have to order most of my art supplies online as there simply isn’t a place to buy what I need here. So, when I get the opportunity to visit places like Ottawa and Toronto I’m like the proverbial farmer who comes to the big city. I’m looking for stuff… lots of stuff.

At the top of my to-buy list this trip was “Stillman & Birn sketchbooks.” Anyone who has followed my blog knows that I use them almost exclusively as I appreciate their quality. In short, they make me look better than I am and I need all the help I can get. One of my first stops in Ottawa was a big disappointment as the stored looked like they were going out of business. If empty shelves can make a retail store money, they are doing great.

But Toronto is a different place. It’s the location of two of the largest online art stores in Canada. Both stock S&B sketchbooks and both have physical stores in Toronto. I had a plan. Curry Art Supplies is located only a 15 minute walk from our hotel so that was my first stop. While they did have some S&B, they didn’t have the sizes and paper types I wanted. Very disappointing.

But after a romp through the Silver Snail, a comic book store just down the street, we headed for Above Ground Art Supplies, another 15 minutes of walking. Above Ground has got to be one of the coolest art stores on the planet. It’s a large, beautiful, three-story house and each room of the first two floors is filled, floor to ceiling, with stuff. Cool stuff. Great stuff.

I was so excited that I nearly ran up the stairs to the second floor where the sketchbooks were located. You have to see the sketchbook room to believe it. They’ve got hundreds of sketchbooks. They’ve got so many that their inventory spills out into a hallway and dribbles into a room containing modeling materials. I’m sure I spent half an hour just looking at all the sketchbooks. Most important, though was that they had the Stillman & Birn Beta series books that I was looking for. I needed some to get me through the summer. I wanted to buy them all but in a rare fit of rational thought, I limited myself to buying three of them. I added some incidentals to my pile and checked out. The credit card was only mildly warm as I left this great art store.