Art Every Day Month - Day 23 - Testing out Strathmore's Visual Journal

I purchased three of the new Strathmore Visual Journals to test out. I don't usually use a spiral bound sketchbook because spiral pages slide and can smear more delicate mediums, but I picked these up to test drive them for my sketch group. This watercolor sketch was done on the 140lb cold press Visual Journal. Page buckled slightly but not too bad. Has a nice texture so that you can use the paper as part of the sketch. Handled layers and washes well. This was my first test drive, I'll see how it handles ink and other wet media, plus two sided work. Very reasonably priced, got it at Jerry's Artarama for a whopping $3.96 for 22 sheets of 5 .5 x 8 inch sheets of sturdy 140 lb watercolor paper in a wire bound sketchbook. Not a bad buy.

The sketch is from a photo that I took with my IPhone one morning during the summer. It's one of the rock jetties that border the Patchogue River, looking out toward Fire Island, in the distance.