Clairefontaine watercolor sketchbook - review
Last Christmas (was it already so long ago?), someone who knew I was painting quite a lot and I really like watercolors offered me a Clairefontaine watercolor sketchbook. I already had many ongoing sketchbooks, so I actually started it only end of March, and finished it beginning of July. That’s probaly the fastest I completed a sketchboook so far! I have already done a sketchbook tour on my channel, so you can go check that out if you are interested :)
In this post, I want to give you so more feedback on the sketchbook, so that you know what you are buying if you plan on gettting one for yourself.
What is this sketchbook?
When looking at the sketchbook features, it sounds like any other watercolor sketchbook. It is 100% cotton, 300gsm watercolor paper. Spiral bound. It looks like an A5 format, landscape orientation. Nothing very unusual here. The series is called Voyage par Clairefontaine.
However, when I strated using it, I very soon realized that the paper was not behaving like my usual watercolor paper (and I have tried a verity of watercolor paper and sketchbook, from very high 100% cotton quality to cellulose ones). The surface is rough (which can be OK, I typically like cold-pressed rather than hot-pressed because I like to have a little bit of texture, but I tend to find that rough is too much for me). Both sides of the paper are very different, with the back being much smoother (this is also quite usual, watercolor papers are typically not meant to be used on both sides, and the sizing - or surface paper treatment - can be different).
All in all, it sounds like any watercolor sketchbook. So what am I saying that it behaved differently?
Testing the paper…
First, let me quickly go back to what I expect from a watercolor sketchbook, and what I use them for. I usually don’t do very rendered pieces on my sketchbooks. I do concept sketches, studies, mixing, and a lot of just playing around. This is where I experiment with different techniques, new colors, etc. I don’t need very high quality paper for that (though it is also nice to do smaller versions of some final pieces and see how the paper reacts), but the paper should allow me to play with basic techniques like wet-int-wet (which I really love for watercolors).
As the paper in this sketchbook is 100% cotton, I thought it would be a perfect place to experiment with lots of wet washes, multiple layers and more complex pieces. However, as I strated to wet the paper, I realized that the water was sittingon top and not sinking at all into the paper. The drying time was unexcpectedly short (100% cotton paper tends to dry quite slow, especially rough one in my experience). It made all sorts of wet techniques very challenging… On top of that, the rough texture made it very difficult to create any sorts of fine details, or to use other tools (like fineliners) to add some. Also, I soon realized that the paper was not taking multiple layers very well, especially wet ones. Lifting (removing some colors using a clean damp brush) and masking fluids both ripped the paper.
As watercolors were not very satisfying to use on this paper, I started to experiement with a verity of media. As the smoother side of the paper also behaved poorly with water, I uised it for inks, calligraphy, colored pencils and gouache. All of those performed quite nicely! On the rougher side, I made attempts with watercolor pencils and watercolor crayons (as you need less water), which was fun to play with, but not the most enjoyable experience. I also tried some oil pastels (as it can be nice to have some textured paper for those), but the grain was too rough and I could not get rid of all the white dots from the paper.
Concluding thoughts
All in all, did I enjoy this sketchbook? Not really. It was a fun challenge to use it and try out all of my media in there to know what worked best. But overall, most of them performed worse than on my usual (cheap) sketchbooks, and the rough paper was a struggle for everything. The sketchbook did not deliver performance I expect from a 100% cotton watercolor sketchbook. This is not necessarily a problem of the sketchbook series: the one I received could have been poorly stored and the paper would thus not perform as intended. However, even with better storage conditions, I feel like the paper grain is not optimum for my use (and you do not know it is rough before you open it…). If you are looking for a nice 100% watercolor sketchbook, I would definitely recommend to look for other brands. If you’re looking for a mixed media sketchbook, then you don’t need to break the bank and pay for a 100% cotton paper. Also, I recommend not taking a paper with too much texture for mixed meida, as it can make the use of inks and pencils challenging.
