Wooden Sketchbooks

A drawing pad you keep the cover of

Birch plywood covers, engraved and cut, holding a blank A5 block on rings. The rings open so the block can be lifted out and replaced when it is full, and the cover carries on.

That matters more with a sketchbook than with a notebook. A drawing pad is used up quickly, and the covers of most are card that is finished when the paper is.

Why rings rather than a sewn spine?

Because a drawing needs the page flat. Rings let a sheet lie completely open, which a sewn block will not do near the spine, and the gutter is where a drawing that crosses a spread goes wrong. They also let a sheet be removed cleanly, which matters when a drawing is finished and needs to be scanned, framed or given away. Every sketchbook here is ring-bound, including the ones with a leather spine.

What paper is inside?

Blank, with nothing printed on the sheets; that is the difference between a sketchbook and a notebook in our range. Our own sketchbooks carry 200 g/m² watercolour paper, heavy enough to take a wash without cockling, so they work for travel painting as well as pencil and ink. A few of the other designs carry 80 or 90 g/m² drawing paper for dry media; each product page says which.

The cover as a working surface

Birch plywood is stiff enough to draw against and light enough to hold in one hand, so the sketchbook works on a knee, on a train or standing in front of something. It is also the reason these survive being carried: a sketchbook lives in a bag with pencils, and a card cover comes back bent.

The engraving is cut rather than printed, so it stays through the years in which the cover outlasts several blocks.

Where do they get used?

On a journey most naturally: a sketchbook carried on a trip is a different record from a camera, and the wooden cover is the part that comes home intact. Also life drawing, design work, teaching, and anyone who works standing up. The rigid cover is what those have in common.