I love them! They are my new favourite :-) In 2016 I started working in the gorgeous crowd funded The Perfect Sketchbook B5, made with Fabriano Artistico watercolour paper in 200gsm. These are all workable without being exciting, I think. Winsor & Newton introduced a 300gsm 100% cotton paper range at the end of 2015 that looked promising. I have tested the Handbook watercolour paper, the Strathmore 500 sketchbook paper and will explore the Pentallic aquarelle sketchbook.
![sketchpad online paint drawing sketchpad online paint drawing](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0144/9571/1296/products/amazon1_74148082-5d73-489d-be05-7548012fad25_1200x1178.jpg)
If I want a larger size I have used the Moleskine A4 watercolour folio or a Canson all Media spiral book. *Note - sadly the Moleskine paper has changed from 2014 and the new version is not as nice is it was. (See my blog post on Moleskine Watercolour Notebooks here.) The Beta square spiral-bound is designed for watercolour too, but the 200gsm paper of the Moleskine was hard to beat for a balance of weight and number of pages in the book.
![sketchpad online paint drawing sketchpad online paint drawing](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/9e/89/b9/9e89b9afb1e382520f5abe4379dcf61f.jpg)
(See my Blog entry on the huge Stillman & Birn range here.)
![sketchpad online paint drawing sketchpad online paint drawing](https://cdn.ourcodeworld.com/public-media/gallery/gallery-5b23f1925270c.png)
I also use the Stillman & Birn Alpha pocket sketchbook as it is a good size to have with me for notes and sketches, as well as their slightly larger than 9圆" Alpha sketchbooks which I use in bound and spiral formats for quick sketches, studies and demonstrations. These are all drawn and painted from life, and from 2013 they were mostly done in small (A5) sketchbooks, my favourite being the original paper Moleskine Watercolour Notebook which is landscape format - I stocked up on spare books when they changed the paper. Below is a selection of images from some of my sketchbooks.