Comparison of the Stillman & Birn Sketchbook Series

Last Friday, I received a package of Stillman & Birn sketchbooks.

• hardbound Alpha Series 8.5x11 in (21.6x27.9 cm); 
• wire-coil Beta Series 7x10 in (17.8x25.4 cm); 
• hardbound Gamma Series 5.5x8.5 in (14.0x21.6 cm)
• wire-coil Epsilon Series 6x8 in (15.2x20.3 cm)

I already had a wire-coil Delta series 7x7 in (17.8x17.8 cm).  I reviewed this sketchbook a couple of weeks ago.

You can see that the sketchbooks come in many sizes and I was very excited to receive a couple of the hardbacks to review.  These are new

I'm at Writer's Camp in North Carolina to give a presentation and help out so I didn't really have time to do much artwork this weekend.  However, I wanted to post something, and I've seen many questions about the differences between these various sketchbooks.  So I decided to write up a quick post (quick for me--it's pretty long for you, lol) that highlighted the differences.

I did a test page with swatches of different media that will hopefully help you determine the differences in paper.  I won't go into much detail--over the next few weeks I'll post a review on each in the series.  For now, it's just the facts, ma'am.  Just the facts.

I didn't include the number of sheets because I think that has more to do with size than series.  I'll add that in the separate reviews.

Paper weights are not standardized, and I found all of these sketchbooks to be at the heavy end of the spectrum.

	ALPHA	BETA	GAMMA	DELTA	EPSILON(pen& ink)
Paper shade	Natural White	Natural White	Ivory	Ivory	Natural White
Surface	Vellum	Rough	Vellum	Rough	Plate Surface
Weight	100 lb/150 gsm	180lb/270 gsm	100 lb/150 gsm	180lb/270 gsm	100 lb/150 gsm

I was interrupted while doing my test pages and did the Beta last.  I picked up the wrong colors on a couple of the tests.  The difference in color is me, not the Beta series book,lol.  All of the books curled and dimpled a little bit when I used water, but all of them flattened out after the book was closed a while.

The only color that bled through was with the alcohol markers.

I'm looking forward to reviewing these books individually, and hope you look forward to seeing them.  And with that, I'll leave you with a bleedthrumanade (got lemons, make lemonade.  Got marker bleedthru? Make bleedthrumanade) done with Spectrum Noirs in the Epsilon Pen & Ink Series Sketchbook.