Introducing the Blackwing Slate and Moleskine Voyageur New Journals/Sketchbooks

My dear hubby is always on the lookout for great new products for me.  This past week he purchased a couple of new notebooks so I thought I would do a little video as I opened them for the first time.  Below is my link for my video.

I looked at the Moleskine Voyageur Travelers notebook first.  This is their new specialty notebook.  There is a link to the Moleskine website describing the notebook below.  Moleskine.com/voyageur

The book is 4 1/2 by 7 inches (not the usual sized Moleskine) and has 208 pages.  It has a brown linen cover, and standard elastic closure.  It has some informational pages with a world map and time zones, international phone codes, emergency phone numbers, stamp pages and then a number of lined sheets, tiny dot grid sheets, and blank sheets for your writing.  There are also some perforated pages in the back of the book which are packing lists and shopping lists for your trip.  Lastly, there is a nice index section you can fill out, a standard Moleskine pocket, with travel themed stickers and three different colored ribbon bookmarks.

Since I do not travel extensively (have never been out of the country) the international pages really don't hold any use for me.  But, my son has traveled, so I may put a dot on every place he has been.  But that's ok.  Never can have too much info.  For a world traveler, this notebook is wonderful!

I have decided to use this book as a record of my plein air painting and sketching adventures.  I can use the lined paper for my diary--listing where I have been, a brief description of what I painted, with what medium, and my general experience.  Addresses, names of the places...etc.  I can also use the dot grids to show little maps, or thumbnails of my pictures.  I think this will add to my sketchbook diaries, as I only get a chance to write down the date, where I was, and what medium used.  There is much more information to share.  Temps...thoughts while painting, conditions (noisy, buggy, why I didn't do X) Etc.  It will make a nice art diary for my car travels.  Perfect!

I made a media test out of the last page.  It takes pen and ink very well...standard Moleskine creme paper.  Love it!  Also takes pencils well and light watercolor washes, should I need to do that at some point  My Lamy Gel pen and the Pentel Pocket brush were the only ones that shadowed through to the other side.  But it still was not much.  The notebook was introductory priced at $18.95--online.  A thumbs up all around!

I forgot to show the beautiful ribbon bookmarks in the video! 

Test page

Bleed through--Lamy roller ball, Pentel Pocket Brush only and it's slight

Next is the Blackwing Slate Drawing Book.  It is similar to the Moleskine regular sketchook at 5 x 8 1/4".  It has 160 pages of acid free paper and is 100 gsm.  It is thicker than a Moleskine writing journal, but is thinner than the Moleskine sketchbook paper (old type...creme)  It is a lovely paper, and takes pencil, pen and colored pencil, light watercolor washes well.  I did a test sheet at the back of the notebook to show the various materials.  It also has a pencil loop on the spine and comes with a Blackwing Palomino 602 pencil (the medium graphite).  I had the darker graphite pencil and tested that as well.  It took those pencils like butter!!  Shading and value differences--excellent!!  Colored pencil--layering was good as well as burnishing two colors.  Light watercolor washes were fine, not much crinkling or bleed through.  There was very little bleed through with any of the media except the Pental Pocket Brush, which I made pretty thick lines.  There is a book mark, an envelope pocket with business card slit and an elastic to keep the book closed.  It was a little pricey at $25, but considering the amount of media that I work with in my sketchbooks, it was worth it!  I'm looking forward to using this book! 

Nice cover, elastic closure, pencil loop with Blackwing pencil included! 

Blackwing test page! 

Very little bleed through...only could see my thick Pentel Pocket Brush! 

 Both books had online resources.  The Blackwing even has a place to post your work! This may rachet this book up my sketchbook lineup to the top!!!

Thanks for reading...please let me know if you have any questions on either of the books or my materials.  Have an creative day!!