If you’re still searching for gifts for the notebook lover who has everything, or if you yourself are the notebook lover who has everything and wants their loved ones to give them something other than notebooks, here’s a few ideas to put on your list! I recently finished reading The Notebook: A History of Thinking … Continue reading Last Minute Gift Ideas for Notebook Lovers
A few years ago, I went to an exhibition of art by Karla Knight, but for some reason have never gotten around to posting about it til now. Her work is very interesting, full of strange symbols and spacey-looking shapes. But of course I was especially intrigued since some of the exhibition included notebooks! I … Continue reading Karla Knight’s Notebooks
Watercolors are a great companion for many notebooks. If you like to draw or just decorate your pages, adding a splash of color is easy with a pocket size watercolor set. Lately I’ve become a bit of a collector of different watercolor boxes, some of which I’ve mentioned in previous posts where I’ve reviewed watercolor … Continue reading Watercolor Sets
Cloth covers aren’t that unusual for notebooks, but how about a notebook made entirely of cloth and needlework– even the writing in it!?! [Candace Hicks’s] primary art practice includes recreating classic composition notebooks in cloth form, embroidering text into their fabric pages. The text is mostly composed of collected snippets that she finds recurring in … Continue reading Notebooks Made of Cloth
I’ve posted before about Ellsworth Kelly’s Sketchbooks: see A Wonderfully Messy Sketchbook. I had to return to the topic after seeing a wonderful reel of sketchbook images on the Instagram page of EK100.org, which is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Ellsworth Kelly’s birth. A couple of screen grabs below: Apparently he kept lots of sketchbooks, … Continue reading Ellsworth Kelly Sketchbooks
Françoise Gilot died recently, at the age of 101. Françoise Gilot, Artist in the Shadow of Picasso, Is Dead at 101 In remembrance of her many talents, here’s an image from one of her travel sketchbooks, reproduced in facsimile in a limited edition set of books published by Tachen, which I posted about back when … Continue reading R.I.P. Françoise Gilot
I just saw the incredibly sad and shocking news that Chandler O’Leary died suddenly a few days ago. I did not know her personally but she has been one of my favorite notebook/sketchbook artists for years. I thought for sure I had done a post about her, but I guess I never did. I know … Continue reading R.I.P. Chandler O’Leary
I usually think of artists who draw and paint as having the most beautiful notebooks and sketchbooks, but photographers keep some intriguing notebooks too: my latest “other people’s notebooks” fascination is with Diane Arbus. I’ve always found her quite interesting, since discovering her photographs when I was in high school, to more recently reading Patricia … Continue reading Diane Arbus Notebooks
If you’re not familiar with the term “mudlark,” it means someone who digs around in a riverbed at low tide to see what sorts of treasures they might find. I felt like I’d found some treasure when I discovered Johnny Mudlark’s diary! I first saw some of these images on Pinterest, and was led to … Continue reading A Thames Mudlarker’s Notebook
The first question about this watercolor notebook is what its brand name actually is. The Amazon listing and the label on the shrinkwrap list the brand as “Chris W.” But the paper band and the stamp on the notebook itself say “Mairtini.” I guess I’ll call it the Mairtini Watercolor notebook, since that’s what’s on … Continue reading Chris W. / Mairtini Watercolor Notebook Review
