Watercolor Sketchbooks

Last weekend I was reading Sketchbook Confidential 2 and watercolorist Robin Poteet wrote about how she makes her own traveling watercolor sketchbooks. She cuts down full sheets of watercolor paper, using both 140 lb. and 300 lb. papers along with some sketch weight papers, cuts mat board for the front and back covers then takes them to be spiral bound at a print shop. I loved that idea, especially since I paint on canvas now, yet have lots of full sheets of watercolor paper languishing with loneliness and neglect, upstairs in my watercolor studio. I decided to make my own and after lots of slicing and dicing I had enough to make 5 sketchbooks! Off to the printers the following Monday I was eager to see them completed. After being turned away by 3 different print shops I was beginning to think I wouldn't get them bound, and would end up with a nice pile of trimmed loose papers and a lot of wasted effort. Happily SP & B came through for me, and the next day I picked up 5 new sketchbooks for a very reasonable price!

You can see in the above photo the backside of an old watercolor painting I scrubbed most of the color off of. I'll probably cover it with gesso for a fresh start. One of the sketch books has random sizes of papers to mix things up. Two of the books have already become gifts! It's fun to make custom sketchbooks with quality artist papers. I can see myself making more of these in the future!