If you are looking for the Hahnemühle YouTangle.art Tile giveaway, you can find it here.
A few weeks ago, I won a copy of a Denik Notebook from the Notebook Stories blog. If you are into notebooks, it's a great place for reviews, and of course, the occasional giveaway.
Denik is a company with a cause. A portion of the proceeds go directly to building schools and to support the artist that designed it. Learn more about their mission, and the artists who design the covers, here.
It will soon be the Season of giving, so I thought it would be a good time to review this notebook - a gift you can give that will give in more ways than one.
Specs
Size: 5.25 x 8.25
No. of Pages: 144 pages/72 sheets
Paper: 100 gsm text, white, blank
Cover: 250 gsm Soft touch laminated cover stock with Artwork by Liesl Cannon. Learn more about the artist here.
Binding: Smythe-Sewn and glued, layflat, special glue resists cold and heat
Price: $9.99 USD
Look & Feel
I received the Denik Softcover Layflat notebook with cover artwork by Leisl Cannon. Her beautiful mountain painting is on both the front and back cover. The front has nothing but the painting and the artist's signature. The back has the Denik logo, statement, and social media information, as well as the name of the artist and @ information.
The covers are rounded and lie flush to the pages.
The inside covers have further information about Denik's mission.
The paper is white and smooth, but not slick.
Except for the first two pages in the very front and the very back, all the pages lie flat My scan makes it look like there is a slope, but there isn't, even in the middle.
The binding is a Smyth-sewn block glued into the cover (which is why the first and last two pages don't lie flat).
The soft touch cover is pleasant to the touch. It is a little slick which might be an issue while carrying the book around, if you are as klutzy as I am.
You can fold the book pages back so it can be held in one hand while you are writing or drawing.
Performance
As you may know, I like to test my paper to the point of destruction. I hit that almost immediately with this notebook. When I used a fountain pen to write, I had no feathering or bleed-through, but when I drew circles, layering wet ink on wet, the paper started pilling. The ink bled through to the back and onto the page beneath.
It doesn't show too well with the scan, but I also had bleed-through with the technical pen and colored fineliner, though it wasn't as bad. Surprisingly, the brush pen, with a much heavier, bolder line but drier ink was the only medium with show-through, but it no bleed-through.
The ballpoint pen debossed the paper when I drew the circle, but not while writing. In fact, none of the problems occurred while I was writing, except for the brush pen showing through.
It seemed to me that the issue had to do with how wet the ink/dye/paint was and whether you were adding wet ink on top of wet. With that in mind, I used the same technical pen that had bled through in my first test to draw my next test.
I moved around, coming back to work on areas that I wanted darker, after giving the ink at least 2-3 minutes to dry. As a result, I had no bleed-through or show-through from this drawing.
I used colored pencils on a brush pen drawing I had done earlier. The paper was a bit smooth for it, but did allow me to lay down 3 or 4 layers before reaching a burnished stage.
Overall
A few weeks ago, I won a copy of a Denik Notebook from the Notebook Stories blog. If you are into notebooks, it's a great place for reviews, and of course, the occasional giveaway.
Denik is a company with a cause. A portion of the proceeds go directly to building schools and to support the artist that designed it. Learn more about their mission, and the artists who design the covers, here.
It will soon be the Season of giving, so I thought it would be a good time to review this notebook - a gift you can give that will give in more ways than one.
Specs
Size: 5.25 x 8.25
No. of Pages: 144 pages/72 sheets
Paper: 100 gsm text, white, blank
Cover: 250 gsm Soft touch laminated cover stock with Artwork by Liesl Cannon. Learn more about the artist here.
Binding: Smythe-Sewn and glued, layflat, special glue resists cold and heat
Price: $9.99 USD
Look & Feel
I received the Denik Softcover Layflat notebook with cover artwork by Leisl Cannon. Her beautiful mountain painting is on both the front and back cover. The front has nothing but the painting and the artist's signature. The back has the Denik logo, statement, and social media information, as well as the name of the artist and @ information.
The covers are rounded and lie flush to the pages.
The inside covers have further information about Denik's mission.
The paper is white and smooth, but not slick.
Except for the first two pages in the very front and the very back, all the pages lie flat My scan makes it look like there is a slope, but there isn't, even in the middle.
The binding is a Smyth-sewn block glued into the cover (which is why the first and last two pages don't lie flat).
The soft touch cover is pleasant to the touch. It is a little slick which might be an issue while carrying the book around, if you are as klutzy as I am.
You can fold the book pages back so it can be held in one hand while you are writing or drawing.
Performance
As you may know, I like to test my paper to the point of destruction. I hit that almost immediately with this notebook. When I used a fountain pen to write, I had no feathering or bleed-through, but when I drew circles, layering wet ink on wet, the paper started pilling. The ink bled through to the back and onto the page beneath.
It doesn't show too well with the scan, but I also had bleed-through with the technical pen and colored fineliner, though it wasn't as bad. Surprisingly, the brush pen, with a much heavier, bolder line but drier ink was the only medium with show-through, but it no bleed-through.
The ballpoint pen debossed the paper when I drew the circle, but not while writing. In fact, none of the problems occurred while I was writing, except for the brush pen showing through.
I moved around, coming back to work on areas that I wanted darker, after giving the ink at least 2-3 minutes to dry. As a result, I had no bleed-through or show-through from this drawing.
I used colored pencils on a brush pen drawing I had done earlier. The paper was a bit smooth for it, but did allow me to lay down 3 or 4 layers before reaching a burnished stage.
The Denik Layflat Notebook has a beautiful cover, one of many being sold, and part of its purchase goes to build schools and to support the cover artist. The soft touch cover is pleasant to the touch but a little slick. The binding is sturdy with a glue that resists cold and hot temperatures. The notebook lies completely flat.
The paper is middle of the road, good for pens and pencil. It will pill or bleed-through with medium levels of saturation, so you might want to test what you use before using it very much. Darker inks may show through on the back. Despite this, most mediums will work without feathering or bleeding through while writing.
Disclaimer
I won this Denik Layflat Notebook when I entered a giveaway at the NotebookStories website. I was not asked to do this review and Denik is not aware that I was going to do one. I received no other consideration.
The paper is middle of the road, good for pens and pencil. It will pill or bleed-through with medium levels of saturation, so you might want to test what you use before using it very much. Darker inks may show through on the back. Despite this, most mediums will work without feathering or bleeding through while writing.
Disclaimer
I won this Denik Layflat Notebook when I entered a giveaway at the NotebookStories website. I was not asked to do this review and Denik is not aware that I was going to do one. I received no other consideration.
Other Review
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