Black Sketch Books 1 - Moleskine Watercolour Notebooks.

I have a large number of black books that I have used over the last 30 years as sketch books, visual diaries, note books, study notes and so on. I have some other books that are not black - beautiful leather bound books and so on - but I'll concentrate on the black books for now! This first post is on the Moleskine Watercolour Notebooks. Future posts will cover Stillman & Birn, Handbook, Canson and others I have tried over the years.

My collection of black books jumbled onto one shelf. 

Moleskine watercolour sketchbooks. Pocket
on left. The others are 5 of the 'large' and two of the 'folio'.

Moleskine Watercolour Notebooks 

Of all the sketchbooks I have tried, my favourite for painting are the Moleskine Watercolour Notebooks. These are made with 200gsm cold-pressed white watercolour paper that is designed to be the same surface on both sides. It is also thick enough to take paint on both sides and takes watercolour washes well. Being cold pressed it is not completely smooth but is also nice to use for pen and ink and pencil drawing.

 The Moleskine watercolour notebooks come in landscape format in Pocket (A6), Large (A5), Folio Album (A4) and a larger Folio Album (A3). You can see them all here. They all have an elastic closure, which is helpful if the book is rattling around in a bag, and a pocket for extra papers or notes in the back, features that have been copied extensively in recent years. I have had a pocket version, on the left of the picture, since 2006, and it is a lovely little watercolour book but I prefer to carry a the larger A5 book with me these days, along with a Stillman & Birn Alpha Pocket notebook, which I'll show you in part 2.

The Large Moleskine Watercolour Notebook from the Moleskine.com website.

I really like the landscape format of these books. For plein air sketching it allows you to do a very wide view across the page if you wish, or turn the book vertically for an alternate view. The images below are all from an A5 'large watercolour sketchbook' as pictured above, which is 81/4' x 5" or 21cm x 13cm. You can see many more of my sketches on my website here. A great size for plein air and my absolute favourite sketch book.

Large watercolour sketchbook used horizontally. 

Large watercolour sketchbook used vertically

Large watercolour sketchbook with image extended partially across the page.

I am up to my 4th Large Notebook for plein air sketching, but have two others that I use for documentation. One I have called 'Every Watercolour', which has a painted swatch of every watercolour I have tried. They are arranged by colour type, lemon yellows together, deep blues etc, with details of colour name, brand and pigments used. Here is one of the cool blues pages. They are painted quite close together to waste as little space as possible but are also done with plenty of water at the top to show the full tonal range and characteristics of each colour.

'Every Watercolour' sketchbook - one of the cool blues pages.

My other Large Watercolour Notebook has a whole range of mixing experiments and triad work. It is very helpful to keep these in one well organised spot rather than to do them on a rough piece of paper and throw them away. They can then be referred to later and are very useful for my teaching. Here are a couple of sample pages.

A mixing wheel with Transparent Red Oxide mixed with some warm and cool yellows, blues and reds

A colour wheel using opaque earth colours. On the right are other compatible colours.

My A4 Folio Album books are also for my own reference notes. One contains a paint-out and research information, mixing experiments and pigment history of every Daniel Smith watercolour. Below is my page on Ultramarine.

Ultramarine, page from my Moleskine Watercolour Folio on Daniel Smith watercolours. In the left margin are other Ultramarine paints by other manufacturers for comparison.

Coming up next - Stillman & Birn.

Sketching from Georges Head Arts Precinct with the Sydney Sketch Club.

Another cliff view, quite different from the Blue Mountains, but the rain came in so I moved under cover to paint some leaves and an empty coffee cup!

North Head, in Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

Another leaf, in Moleskine watercolour sketchbook

Leaf, in Moleskine watercolour sketchbook.

An empty coffee cup, in Stillman & Birn Beta book.

Painting in the Blue Mountains for a weekend.

I had a lovely weekend away in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. It's very challenging trying to capture these massive cliffs but a lot of fun. In the evenings I painted flowers from the garden.

View from Govott's Lookout, first afternoon, in Stillman & Birn Beta square sketchbook.

View from Evan's Lookout, in Moleskine watercolour sketchbook

Painting in the evening - a Rhododendron we found on the way home.

View from Govott's Leap, Moleskine watercolour sketchbook

Some stones laying around at Govott's leaf lookout, Moleskine watercolour sketchbook.

Another flower painted in the evening, Moleskine watercolour sketchbook

Another evening study - Waratah leaf, in Moleskine watercolour sketchbook

More leaves

I have always enjoyed painting leaves. Whether large or small, colourful or rather dull, they provide an excellent subject to paint.

Painted in a beautiful bound leather sketch book.

Painted in Vanuatu in an A5 landscape Moelskine watercolour sketchbook.

Painted in  Moleskine pocket sektchbook.

A leave in Indonesia.

Some local leaves.

Gum leaf study

Gum leaf study

Plein air sketch at the Old Coal Loader, Balls Head Bay

I had never heard about this place until the Sydney Sketch Club decided to go there. I'll go back to read about its history some time, but this is a study of a wonderful tunnel built out of sand stone. It's hard to see the scale in the sketch, but it is very large!

Tunnel at the Old Coal Loader. Watercolour in Moleskine watercolour sketchbook.

National Tree Day.

I went out with the Sydney Sketchers to Wolli creek and painted a couple more plein air studies. Another gorgeous Winter's day.

Angophora tree on National Tree Day (Moleskine Watercolour Sketchbook)

Leaf Litter (Stillman & Birn Alpha Sketchbook)

Watercolour work in progress - Jacaranda Pods

I was recently asked how I go about doing my plein air studies so thought I'd post progress photos here.
The study is of a couple of Jacaranda Seed Pods, painted on Arches smooth watercolour paper.

The first pod completed

The second pod drawn in very lightly in pencil

The outlines painted in a very light wash and the pencil erased

First washes of colour

Next washes

Some shadow washes

The study 'Jacaranda Pods'... just needs some shadows...

Colours a bit washed out on scanner...

'Jacaranda Pods', winner of the Watercolour Prize at the Municipality of Lane Cove Art Award Exhibition 2013.

Plein air in the snow

A snow gum in Thredbo village. Handbook sketchbook.

I spent the week at the Snowy Mountains and only skied a couple of days, leaving time for some reading and sketching. My fingers got a bit cold but really the weather was stunning.


I took a few sketchbooks with me, including one I have had for a long time but not used so much made by Global art and bought in New York in 2007! It's the A5 landscape format that I love the paper is a little cream rather than white. It worked nicely though for the tree on the left.

I did a few sketches in my newish Stillman & Birn Alpha pocket sketchbook - at about A6 it is the smallest in their range. It takes pen, pencil and washes very well so is lovely as a take everywhere sketch/note book.

I also had my favourite A5 Moleskine Watercolour sketchbook with me, in the lovely landscape format that is so versatile for plein air sketching.

Friday Flats, Snowy Mountains. Stillman&Birn alpha pocket sketch book.

View from a cafe. Alpha&Birn pocket sketch book.

A gorgeous snowgum on the property where we stayed, painted in my favourite A5 landscape Moleskine watercolour sketchbook.

I'd like to see a Stillman & Birn Beta in that format. The Beta is great paper for watercolour - just a bit thicker and more textured than the alpha. I wonder if they make it?

Sketching in the Museum

The Sydney Sketchers spent a couple of hours sketching in the museum at Sydney University today. I tackled a couple of beetles - a Rhinoceros Beetle and a rather pretty one from South East Asia. Mostly done in waterproof ink with my fountain pen, with a little bit of colour wash. We were asked to use dry media so a good chance to use a neat water brush.

Chalcasoma caucasus South East Asia

Dynastes hercules South America

Sydney Sketch Group

I joined the Sydney Sketch Group for the first time today, sketching at the Strand Arcade. That and the QVB are two of my favourite buildings in the city and it was a really nice way to spend a rainy Saturday.

We had a good turn up and it's lovely to see the very different way each person approaches such a massive challenge. I chose two small details rather than the whole building.

Both were painted in my favourite Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with a water-soluble graphite pencil and watercolours.

Boyd's Rocks - theme and variations

I went to Bundanon in 2011and painted a sketch of the rocks on the Shoalhaven River that Arthur Boyd painted over and over in so many ways. I had no desire to copy his style or techniques, especially since he was painting in oils where I am using watercolour, but have ended up creating a few large landscapes based on them.

Plein air sketch of Boyd's 'Rock Quartet', 2011.

It was incredibly peaceful sitting on the edge of the river. The water really was a deep gold as it reached the beach below me. Perfect colour - quinacridone gold.

The cliff behind was rather interesting, but I also loved the strong shadows against the light coloured rocks. I used Buff Titanium and bistre for them.

'Boyd's Rock Quartet, Shoalhaven River' 2012

I wanted to focus on the wonderful colour of the sky and the water in this painting. Australian skies are so often a lovely deep warm blue.

'Boyd's Rock Quartet II'  2012

In this one I wanted to really focus on the rocks and the line-work of the cliff. I had fun with a dagger brush for the linework. I really enjoyed using the granulating primate colours by Daniel Smith - Green Apatite Genuine and Serpentine Genuine. They are a whole range of colours in one. I have no problem mixing greens but I can't mix to create this level of granulation!

I did another of these - almost the same - as this one sold before I could exhibit it. And I tried it in acrylic too. I love painting rocks.