Two hahnemühle sketchbooks

My Sketchbooks for the Urban Sketcher’s Symposium in Toulouse

I’m taking three sketchbooks to the Urban Sketcher’s Symposium in Toulouse, an A6 for everyday quick sketches, and an A5 for bigger street scenes. I was on the fence about taking a 19.5cm square sketchbook for different layouts. But after seeing the materials lists for the workshops I’m attending, I felt the need of a larger format sketchbook, because a couple of the workshop instructors mentioned an A4 sketchbook, but I don’t really like sketching in that size, so this square book is a compromise.

I did contemplate taking an A4 sketchbook with me. I have one I’ve started, that I abandoned. But I realised that I needed to go with what I usually use, rather than branching out into something that I’m not familiar with, especially since I’m working in a new environment of an real-life USk Symposium!

All of these sketchbooks I’m taking are Hahnemühle, the ones with the grey cover.

I love using Hahnemühle sketchbook. I have been experimenting with the ones with the grey cover vs. the 100% cotton ones with the black cover. I like using both of them, but I honestly can’t really see a dramatic difference between these two types of paper. I think it all depends on the style of painting you use for your sketch, and my style works well with both.

Although I usually cover my sketchbooks with handmade paper I’ve printed with my Gelli Plate, I wouldn’t ordinarily choose pink. But as a homage to Toulouse being known as the Pink City, I decided to go with that theme. I had all of the pieces of paper and collage bits I used on these covers, in my collection.

Covering my A5 watercolour book

For the A5 book I used scrap paper that was created during a Gelli Plate printing class I attended last week for the front of the book. The attendees were using this scrap paper to clean their brayers, and I collected as much as I could to repurpose. Somebody at the class was using this fluorescent pink, and I love it for this cover. The back of the books was covered with another piece of scrap paper that I used to clean my brayer when I was printing at home. Not quite to bright. But still pink.

I delved into my ransom note letter supply, and found some interesting letters to spell out Toulouse on the front of the cover, as well as one of my Life is Good hearts. On the back I added one of my hand drawn flowers. Whenever I’m feeling creative but don’t feel like sketching and painting, I’ll just grab my watercolours and start making flowers, hearts, birds, leaves and shapes. These then just sit there in a filing system, until I need one of them.

Covering my A6 watercolour book

I used a couple of different papers for my A6 sketchbook, that I created with my Gelli Plate. The paper on the front was created with an image transfers from a magazine, and the back is a multi-layer experiment with some scrap paper and a layer from a paper napkin.

On the front of the book I added one of my large quote cards – with the creative quote “Love what you do, do what you love”. And on the back of the book I added a small heart.

Covering my 19.5cm Square watercolour book

As taking this book was a bit of an afterthought I’d run out of enthusiasm to cover it with Gelli Plate printed paper – so I used some Indian paper I got off Vinted to cover this books and added some of my watercolour flowers and a quote card.

My Matchbook Swatch Book

I had a phase of making matchbook sized hand-bound books, but didn’t know what I was going to do with them. They’ve been sitting in a box waiting for their destiny, and now I’ve found an ideal use for them.

Turns out they make ideal Swatch Books. So I’ve been adding earth tone mixes that’d be good for Toulouse. I still have a few blank pages left, so we’ll see what new mixes I’ll add before I fly next week.

My Rough Sketch Book

Another late addition to my family of books in this rough sketchbook which has different sketch paper in it for planning sketches and taking notes during my workshops. I don’t have any sketchbooks available so I made this one using my spiral binding machine.

I decorated it with an old watercolour painting I had in my scrap pile, that I liked too much to throw away, but didn’t know what to do with it. I had a phase of doing water scapes using this abstract way of painting, but then fell out of love with this style. I cut the picture down to size and used it as a think front cover, and used an old bit of card for the back cover so it’s a sturdy writing surface.