sketchbook – Wicked Little Heart

One of a kind sketchbooks are amazing. I love seeing them in use in cafes, in the park, or even in an actual art-school setting. I love it when people have the audacity to rock the brightly colored book instead of your standard plain black sketchbook (don’t get me wrong, I have some of those too!). Black and white is classic, but sometimes you want something a little more eye-catching.

This is a wholly one of a kind sketchbook assembled from handmade parts–there’s a unique cover paper handcrafted from severa layers of pigment, water-based dye, tissue, gold leaf flecks, and muslin (among other things). It’s wrapped around a flexible, sturdy little matrix that’s pretty lightweight for carting this baby around your city. The spine is wrapped in deco paper, and shows the signature sewing right through it. (The paper is Japanese and features a parasol motif along with some beautiful metallic gold details–I didn’t make that paper, but I purchased it with glee. I love how it looks against the ridiculously vibrant orange & green combo.)

The closure is a simple piece of ribbon, which is totally removable should you prefer a different closure. The cover wraps closed to protect the ends of your paper, and there’s enough wiggle room in the binding that you can easily paste or collage into this book, which, by the way, is filled with hand-ripped Rives BFK.

Rives BFK is a fat printmaking paper with a deckle edge, and will take layers and layers of media. I love hitting it with some gesso to follow up with watercolor, acrylic, inks, stamping, pasting, and hand-written, dip pen letters.

This book measures 8x6x1.5 inches (20.5×15.5×3.5 cm), and holds 112 pages sewn into a multiple signature binding. You can find items of similar size here: wickedlittleheart.etsy.com.