A new adventure means a new sketchbook.

In the past few years my “go to” travel sketchbooks has always been Stillman & Birn Beta or Delta Series. I love the paper and the different sizes in both soft and hard covers.

Now I wanted to try a new sketchbook so I settled on Hahnemulhe’s 100% cotton cold press sketchbook. This is a hardcover book with very high quality paper for watercolor.

For Svalbard I want to downsize, so I chose two journals: a 4″ by 5.5″ panoramic journal and a 5.5″ by 5.5″ square journal. These would fit in well with my lighter one-bag travel ethic and, I thought, if you use a smaller journal, you are encouraged to sketch more because you have less paper to cover. I figured a smaller journal would be easier to do quick, gestural-loose sketches while on my polar cruise. I think of them as my “point and shoot” journals. I still could do detailed sketches with many watercolor washes, but I like the versatility of these journals and I can’t wait to take them to Scandinavia and sketch!

For my opening sketch in the square journal, I chose to paint across the gutter giving me a panoramic spread of 5.5″ by 11″. The spread is the isbjorn (Norwegian for polar bear). This is the number one target mammal on any Svalbard cruise. I loved the way the 100% cotton paper handled the washes (featured sketch).

The introductory sketch of my smaller panoramic journal was the number one target on my bird list: the much sought after ivory gull. This all white gull is only found in the Arctic Polar region. Finding an all white gull in an all white landscape was going to be a challenge! But I was up for it (Bring it on!)

Point and Shoot Watercolor Journals.