Strathmore 469-405 Hardbound Mixed Media Art Journal, 8.5" x 5.5", Toned Gray, 48 Pages

I love Strathmore sketchbooks. My favorite ones are the soft cover mixed media books. I must have a dozen of them!So when I saw this hardback mixed media book, I thought, why the heck not?! It’s even got toned tan paper! It’s a great size for me, too. Sold!But there’s a slight issue with it. Oh, it’s a lovely book, arrived unscathed, everything about it is top notch… and therein lies the issue. I can’t bear to use it!It’s so nice, and I’m such a lousy artist that I’m intimidated by the thing, and it sits on my bookshelf, unused, while I sketch away in some cheap ol Walmart job.I mean, if you’re a brave artist with a lot of confidence, I say, go for it! You won’t regret it!But I won’t purchase it again because it’s too nice. Five stars. Happy sketching!

I absolutely love this sketchbook! The pages are nice and thick, so bleed-throughs are impossible! Graphite pencils (even very soft ones such as 7B, 8B, etc.) are very easy to erase (unless you press super duper hard). I mainly use Arrtx Acrylic markers on this one, and the colors look absolutely beautiful on the toned paper! Also, I absolutely love the format and stickers stick well on the cover, which is very durable!I would definetely buy again!

After a few bad experiences with "Mixed Media" papers and watercolors I was hesitant to try this, but after a couple recommendations I gave it a shot and am very happy that I did. I bought the 5.5x8.5" hardbound journal.The binding is very nice. It appears to consist of four signatures of four sheets (8 pages) each and, to me anyway, the covers are a pleasant feeling nice dark brown, completely free of branding. So far the binding is staying snug.In use I've had no problems having it lie flat enough to work comfortably by opening to a new page, firmly pressing it flat and resting something like my small pencil case on the unused half.This is for the 5.5"x8.5' portrait format only so I don't know how easy or difficult it is to work with the binding of other sizes. It's certainly not as easy to work with as a spiral bound journal, which opens completely flat, but I very much prefer the appearance of this type of binding and have found that the pages don't move around like they do in a spiral bound journal.I'm even more pleased with the paper itself. It's 100% cotton (unlike their watercolor journals) and watercolors appear quite vivid when compared with some other good quality papers. It takes ink very well and even a small .2 sized Rotring technical pen writes smoothly. I've done some light wet on wet with no trouble but realize that doing anything requiring a good soaking might cause difficulty, but that's rarely what I'm using a watercolor journal for.For the combination of both watercolor and pen & ink I've used or am currently using the following *journals*: Canson Monval, Pentalic, Field Artist, Strathmore Visual Watercolor (series 400), Stillman & Birn Zeta and a Moleskine watercolor specific, and I think this Strathmore series 500 Mixed Media is my new favorite (of course changes in pricing might change that). For strictly pen & ink there are other journals/papers that I prefer but when adding watercolors to the mix this journal is hard to beat.Strathmore makes watercolor-specific journals very similar to this, but even if all I did was watercolor (no pen & ink) I'd still choose this Mixed Media journal. Their water-color specific journals use a heavier but lower quality Series 400, cellulose-based, watercolor paper, while this Mixed Media paper is 100% cotton.

Awesome sketchbook!!! I meant to get the softcover version (my mistake, not theirs, of course) but I'm really pleased with this one regardless. The paper has enough texture to be interesting, however it isn't rough. Quite thick too and able to stand up to markers, brush pens, watercolor, etc. as promised, without any bleedthrough thus far. A solid choice, I'll probably buy it again!

First of all, let me say that I've been looking around for a long time for a good mixed media sketchbook. I've tried Canson, Holbein, and Strathmore. Canson did horrible with watercolors, Holbein was a bit too yellowed for my taste, and the Strathmore sheets had an unpleasant texture to them. These are all personal opinions, I must add.But this sketchbook did wonderfully. It handles wet washes very well (although it is only 90lb paper so you shouldn't expect too much from it, I know I haven't been treating it like watercolor paper). Ink and graphite go on smoothly. Due to the slightly cold pressed like texture, colored pencil drawings develop a slightly textured look as well. Although, I must say that the texture is smoother on the back of the paper than the front side. Acrylics also apply very smoothly and look beautiful on the white pages.The only real downsides were that there were only 32 actual pieces of paper (64 if you're a front and back side kind of person), and that Copic alcohol markers bled through the paper almost immediately. I have yet to try out my Prismacolor markers in this sketchbook, But as those are also alcohol based markers, I'm sure that they will bleed through as well.All in all, I would say this is a pretty solid sketchbook. It handles wet washes much, much better than the Canson Mixed Media Sketchbook, and is more fun to ink on than other mixed media sketchbooks as well. If you're an artist who tends to only use one side of your paper, or who works heavily with alcohol based makers, this is not the mixed media book for you. Otherwise, I'd say it's easily one of the best affordable mixed media sketchbooks around.

I have use these for years. The paper is excellent for sketchin

Lovely book with nice weight to it. The watercolor paper is thick. Im looking forward to creating a artist's journal where I can keep my notes and images for watercolor paintings.

Beautiful book. Very well made. Excellent paper quality of course. Strathmore is one of the BEST brands.