sketchbook journaling: part three

the recent past and present: 2015-2023

In June 2016 I discovered the sketchbook that I have been using ever since: the thicker ‘Artway Doodle’ journal and the thinner ‘Artway Travel’ journals. They are both 5 x 7 inches in dimension. I love them, they have thick, off-white cartridge pages and are great for watercolour, colour pencil and pigment pens. I have found that the Faber Castell Pitt brush pens are best as they don’t bleed through the page like some markers and they are waterproof: I have used cheap pens before which really aren’t good when the book gets wet, which sometimes does happen!

I bought a job lot of the travel journals in a sale. They had blue leather covers which I didn’t like so I removed them and like to cover them with suede or leather off-cuts. One of them is covered with some lovely brown suede from some favourite old boots. They take about 6 months for me to fill up.

I generally don’t cover the thicker Artway Doodle journals as I buy them at full price and there is a wide range of leather colours. These take about a year to complete. They are really robust books and take a lot of battering and their thickness can expand to about twice the size once they are finished if I have stuck a lot of things in them. They become wonderful objects in their own right, with history marked on every page and every stain and dent on the cover and pages.

I have a separate diary for stuff I don’t want to share, but the Artway sketchbooks  contain a mixture of personal content, including some writing, in-situ drawing, photos, emphemera, hand-drawn maps, illustrations, lots of historical notes on places I have been to and info-graphics. I also have a series of separate sketchbooks for when I want to be less precious, mainly for in-situ sketching.