Stillman & Birn Sketchbooks

A few weeks ago I received a package from Stillman & Birn containing five of their sketchbooks.  The sketchbooks are examples of Stilmman & Birn's five types and formats of sketchbook.

The options are as follows:

Alpha - 100 lb/150 GSM - Natural White - Vellum - Hardbound or Wirebound
Beta - 180 lb/270 GSM - Natural White - Rough - Wirebound
Gamma - 100 lb/150 GSM - Ivory - Vellum - Hardbound or Wirebound
Delta - 180 lb/270 GSM - Ivory - Rough - Hardbound or Wirebound
Episilon - 100 lb/150 GSM - Natural White - Plate - Hardbound or Wirebound

The Alpha and Gamma series are appropriate for dry media and light watercolor washes, Beta and Delta series are appropriate of multi-media and the Episilon series for pen and ink.  All the paper is archival-grade.

I chose to use the Delta sketchbook first, attracted to the rough, multimedia paper and the square 7 x 7 in. format.  The paper does buckle some with watercolor, but not too much, and after all it is not watercolor specific paper.

I am really please with these sketchbooks and I love this paper.  When I try out the vellum and plate papers I'll post about them also.

Book of Days 4

This turned out darker that I had hoped - but it is in keeping with My One Word - Explore.  I was exploring the tutorial posted on Dion Dior's blog. This did not scan very well either, you cannot see the sparkle, although for some reason I lost a lot of the vibrancy of the Neocolor II's.

Tonal Study

I have been following along with the free watercolor class from PaintBasket TV.  The class is live every Sunday, but they had some technical issues last week, so I have been downloading the class and working from that.

Book of Days 3

So I've been wearing My One Word for a few weeks now and for some reason there just did not seem to be the fit that I had hoped for, while I was thinking about it a new word came to me that seemed better - Explore.

I don't usually use stickers and stamps, but they seemed appropriate here.

Colour & Light

I recently received Jean Haines book How to Paint Colour & Light in Watercolour.  If there is an artist's whose techniques I really want to learn, it is hers.  Her paintings are so loose and have so much life, I really adore them. 

Here is the result of today's practice.

The first two are on cold press paper while the third is on hot press. They actually look better in person, my scanner is getting old and does not scan watercolor very well.

Book of Days 2

Book of Days

Well I'm sort of participating in a few things, but be warned my posting to this blog may be a little haphazard from now until the end of my busy season in April.

The things that I'm trying to participate in are Book of Days over at Wild Precious Life,  My One Word and the 2012 Sketchbook Challenge.  So I may combine some of this things for a while.  Of course, I'll always peek in to see what Tammy is doing over at Daisy Yellow and I'm taking Dion Dior's Twinking H2O's class later this month.  Oh, yeah and I plan to participate in the 34th Annual WorldWide SketchCrawl on January 21, but since there is no local group I hope to meet up with the south Florida group.  The venue is awesome - the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park but it's 170 miles and almost 3 hours.  Wow, I'm tired just listing these, but of course, I'll only be able to do so much and will do as much as I can.

For my One Word for 2012 I chose - FOCUS- focus on my life and health, family, sanity and of course, work. For my Book of Days I did this spread which includes my One Word.

This page is in my Ecosytem Sketchbook, gesso, Dr. PhMartin acrylic ink, Sakura Gellyroll pens, acrylic paint.

I don't do much with collage or faces - I like color and putting words on the pages of my art journal is still something of a challenge - my goal is to do some kind of spread on a weekly basis (I just can't do daily) perhaps something that reflects the past week or my hopes for the next week.

What did you do for New Year's Day?

I made a sketch book.  It has six, six page signatures of Strathmore Artagain black 60 lb paper. I used the cardboard backing from the pad of paper for my covers.  On the front I glued a card that I received from fellow blogger, Jackie, over at Journals and Letters and on the back the folder for a set of cards called Deep Purple.  Both Jackie's card and the set came from Heron Dance Studio.  The stitch is a coptic stitch/curved needle.  Making this book was really much easier that I expected and gives me the confidence to venture forward.  Happy New Year everyone.

Front

Back

My best friend gave me the wonderful book Making Handmade Books: 100+ Bindings, Structures and Forms by Alisa Golden which provided the detailed instructions I used to make this book.