Paper Review: Stonehenge Legion Mini Artist Pad Sample Set, Part 2

Paper Review: Stonehenge Legion Mini Artist Pad Sample Set, Part 2

Review by Tina Koyama

If you missed Part 1 of my review of the Stonehenge Legion Mini Artist Pad Sampler Set, you might want to start there. Part 1 gives an overview of the whole collection and includes a review of seven papers. Today I’ll cover the remaining papers.

Although six pads in the sample set remain to be tested, it’s complicated. The papers are Yupo Translucent, Yupo Medium, Yupo Heavy, Stonehenge Colors, Stonehenge Kraft, and Stonehenge Aqua Coldpress Black. The pad of Stonehenge Colors, however, includes five tones – Natural, Warm White, Cream, Fawn, and Pearl Gray – so you’ll see tests of a total of 10 papers. To further complicate matters, Natural, Warm White and Cream are fairly close in color, and since the individual colors are not identified in the sample pad, I had to guess based on somewhat ambiguous images found on various retailers’ sites. As if that weren’t enough, the Warm White included in the Colors set is slightly different from the standalone Warm White that I showed in Part 1! Note to Legion: I would have appreciated having the paper names printed directly on the sample sheets.

On one side of most samples, I tested student-grade Van Gogh watercolors, a Winsor & Newton Watercolor Marker, a Sakura Koi Coloring Brush Pen, and a Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle pencil. (I placed a small piece of graph paper beneath half the Yupo Translucent sample so that the degree of translucency could be seen.)

2 - media tests - side 1

On the reverse side, I used a Pentel Pigment Ink Brush Pen, my Sailor Naginata Fude de Mannen fountain pen with Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-budo ink, a Staedtler Mars Lumograph H graphite pencil, a Tombow Mono 100 6B graphite pencil, a Caran d’Ache Luminance colored pencil, and a Faber-Castell Polychromos colored pencil. 

For Aqua Coldpress Black, I picked out some especially opaque media to see how they popped: two colors of Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle pencils, a Sakura Gelly Roll gel pen, a Caran d’Ache Fibralo metallic marker, an East Hill Tombstone white brush pen, a Prismacolor Premier pencil, and Uni Posca Paint Markers. (I didn’t have any gouache paints to test, but I bet they would be cool on both black and Kraft.)

3 - media tests - side 2

First, some thoughts on Yupo: It’s the weirdest “paper” ever. A synthetic material, Yupo is “recyclable, waterproof and tree-free,” according to Yupo. It’s closer to plastic than paper. The most experience I’ve had with Yupo is the Field Notes Expedition notebook, which I use to sketch in the rain (yes, of course, I do). I usually use a soft graphite pencil, which skates silently on that completely frictionless surface and looks as almost as dark as a Sharpie!

4 - Yupo medium sketch

Other materials behave just as surprisingly. Since Yupo doesn’t absorb moisture at all, watercolors and other wet media sit on the surface until they dry, which can take a long time (a few hours for some of my tests). I’ve seen some watercolor painters create fantastic effects by taking advantage of this unique quality. But some materials will never dry, like gel pens, and can be rubbed off months later.

The Pentel brush pen’s pigment ink looks rich and solid. On the other hand, the Koi coloring brush pen looks flat and dull. The most surprising effects came from the two colored pencils I tried. The soft, wax-based Luminance could barely be applied; the pigment felt like it was simply sliding around. The oil-based Polychromos, however, had much better results. The best thing to do with Yupo is to try it with as many media as possible! It will likely surprise you, no matter what you use.

After Yupo stole the drama show, all the other samples behaved exceptionally normal by comparison. Although weights were not given on any of these samples, the Aqua Coldpress Black and Stonehenge Kraft feel like 140 pound. The Colors are lighter (I’m guessing about 90 pound). 

The Black Coldpress has a strong tooth similar to its white counterpart (reviewed in Part 1). All the Colors have a much lighter texture that feels the same as the Lenox Cotton and White (Part 1). 

5 - black sketch

6 - Fawn sketch

Overall, the subtle tooth on the lighter papers (Lenox Cotton, Warm White and White in Part 1; Kraft and Colors in Part 2) is probably what stands out as most distinctive about the Stonehenge Legion collection. It’s smooth enough not to cause problems with fountain pens, but it also has enough tooth to make pencilers happy. At least, this penciler: I’m looking forward to using the 9-by-12-inch pad of White I just bought for a colored pencil class I’ll be taking soon.

7 - all sketches

DISCLAIMER: The item in this review include affiliate links. The Well-Appointed Desk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. Please see the About page for more details.

tina-koyamaTina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is Fueled by Clouds & Coffee, and you can follow her on Instagram as Miatagrrl.

Paper Review and Giveaway: Musubi Cosmo Air Light Notebook

Paper Review and Giveaway: Musubi Cosmo Air Light Notebook

(I promise the giveaway is real and not an April Fools joke. Just happens to fall on the 1st!)

Tomoe River has been a paper that is loved by the fountain pen community due to the unique interaction between the paper and ink. Ink shows incredible shading and sheening properties on Tomoe River paper and the paper can take a large amount of ink before bleed through is an issue. New Tomoe River paper is manufactured in a slightly different way and the comparison between the two does show differing properties (although the pros and cons of this change are debated).

Since the announcement that the manufacturing process of Tomoe River paper was changing, the interest in new paper types has increased dramatically as stock of the older version of Tomoe River paper dries up. This interest has driven an increase in notebooks using a variety of paper types.

Musubi recently released a notebook using Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper.

The exterior of the notebook is covered in a light colored cotton and matches the other notebooks in the Musubi lineup of Tomoe River paper and Bank paper notebooks. Each notebook is a slightly different neutral color.

 

The Cosmo Air Light folio notebooks are available in blank, 7mm lined ruling, and crossgrid paginated. my Cosmo Air Light is the blank notebook (blank is best!)

As with all of the Musubi folios, the notebook is only branded on the lower right corner of the front cover.

Musubi CAL lays flat and stays open to your page although new notebooks might need a bit of encouragement at first.

The Cosmo Air Light paper has a very slight color – somewhere between white and ivory. It was hard to notice this color during use.

I tried to test many different characteristics on this paper – bright colors, shading, showing multiple ink colors, sparkly inks, sheening inks. Above is the front side of my testing page, below is the back of the same page.

There is a slight bit of show-through with Cosmo Air Light 83gsm, but very little. The camera actually picks up more show-through than what is seen in-person. Sheen is another piece that is hard to show here – it is quite high in-person.

To show this comparison a bit more clearly, I ran the same tests on a Musubi Tomoe River folio.

Above: Front side

Below: Back side

Cosmo Air Light paper:

Cosmo Air Light paper with watercolor, front (above) and back (below)

Tomoe River paper:

Musubi Tomoe River paper with watercolor, front (above) and back (below)

Cosmo Air Light paper is thicker, less show-through, doesn’t wrinkle as much with water, and shows brighter colors than the Tomoe River paper. I did notice that the back side of the Cosmo Air Light paper appeared shiny after the watercolor had dried:

The back side of the paper with watercolor was still great for writing – the shininess didn’t affect the quality.

After the writing and watercolor, the pages only showed slightly when the notebook was closed – no major wrinkling even with the water.

To wrap up the comparison, here’s a short list (TR for Tomoe River, CAL for Cosmo Air Light):

Size: TR A5, 384 pages; CAL A5, 208 pages

Price: TR $35; CAL $25 (approximate pricing from Singapore currency)

Paper weight: TR 52gsm; CAL 83gsm

Sheen: More from CAL

Shading: Crisper shading from CAL

Color brightness: Slightly brighter on CAL

Multiple ink colors: More from TR

Shimmer: Equal

Show-through: CAL has significantly less

Watercolor: Brighter colors from CAL, easier to blend on TR

Water resistance: CAL superior

Smoothness: CAL has more tooth, TR smoother

I love this new Cosmo Air Light folio. Downsides include number of pages – TR has nearly twice the number of pages, although the CAL does reflect this with a lower price. CAL also shows ink as crisp – very crisp. This could be good or bad – to me it is just different.

I am incredibly impressed with the quality of this new folio and the paper. I do mourn the loss of traditional Tomoe River paper, but at the same time, I’m very happy that this change is motivating new notebooks. I have expanded my daily notebook pile to include a Cosmo Air Light folio and I expect to replace it as soon as it fills up – I’ll also be expanding ink reviews to cover the ink on CAL in addition to TR. This new paper won’t take the place of TR in my heart, but I couldn’t be happier with the quality of the new Cosmo Air Light notebook. Thank you so much, Musubi!

Another thank you is due to Musubi as well. They recently contacted the Well-Appointed Desk to ask if we would give a new Cosmo Air Light notebook to a reader of the blog! In order to enter to win, leave a comment with your favorite feature of the new CAL paper. Details and rules are listed below.

DISCLAIMER: The item in this review was purchased by me and no affiliate links are provided in the post. Please see the About page for more details.

 

TO ENTER: Leave a comment below and leave a comment with your favorite feature of the new CAL paper. Play along and type in something. It makes reading through entries more interesting for me, okay? One entry per person.

If you have never entered a giveaway or commented on the site before, your comment must be manually approved by our highly-trained staff of monkeys before it will appear on the site. Our monkeys are underpaid and under-caffeinated so don’t stress if your comment does not appear right away. Give the monkeys some time.

FINE PRINT: All entries must be submitted by 10pm CST on Monday, April 5, 2021. All entries must be submitted at wellappointeddesk.com, not Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook, okay? Winner will be announced on Monday. Winner will be selected by random number generator from entries that played by the rules (see above). Please include your actual email address in the comment form so that I can contact you if you win. I will not save email addresses or sell them to anyone — pinky swear. If winner does not respond within 5 days, I will draw a new giveaway winner. Shipping via USPS first class is covered. Additional shipping options or insurance will have to be paid by the winner. We are generous but we’re not made of money. US and APO/AFO only, sorry.

Giveaway: Ensso ITALIA Fountain Pen

Giveaway: Ensso ITALIA Fountain Pen

We are delighted to be able to offer another giveaway from Ensso. The new Ensso ITALIA fountain pen ($129 for stainless steel ) is a beautiful machined metal fountain pen. We have ONE Ensso ITALIA fountain pen to giveaway. It features a fine Bock steel nib. There are only a few ITALIAs left for sale so this might be the only way left to get one.

Ensso Italia Fountain Pen

TO ENTER: Leave a comment below and tell us what your favorite Ensso product is or if you already own one, which one. Play along and type in something. It makes reading through entries more interesting for me, okay? One entry per person.

If you have never entered a giveaway or commented on the site before, your comment must be manually approved by our highly-trained staff of monkeys before it will appear on the site. Our monkeys are underpaid and under-caffeinated so don’t stress if your comment does not appear right away. Give the monkeys some time.

FINE PRINT: All entries must be submitted by 10pm CST on Monday, April 5, 2021. All entries must be submitted at wellappointeddesk.com, not Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook, okay? Winner will be announced on Tuesday. Winner will be selected by random number generator from entries that played by the rules (see above). Please include your actual email address in the comment form so that I can contact you if you win. I will not save email addresses or sell them to anyone — pinky swear. If winner does not respond within 5 days, I will draw a new giveaway winner. Shipping via USPS first class is covered. Additional shipping options or insurance will have to be paid by the winner. We are generous but we’re not made of money. US and APO/AFO only, sorry.


DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by JetPens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

Link Love: We all want unicorns

Link Love: We all want unicorns

This week I was tickled by the tale of the lost dog that got caught for stealing a unicorn plushie from Dollar General. Click on the link below to read the whole story, complete with happy ending.

Hope your week is filled with whatever comforts make you as happy as a stray dog loves a unicorn plushie.

Pens:

Ink:

Pencils:

Notebooks & Paper:

Art & Creativity:

Other Interesting Things:

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Notebook Review: Archer & Olive A5 Night Sky Neapolitan Dot Grid Notebook

I have my knitting friends to thank for this review! Recently a friend shared her crafting journal with bits and pieces of her knitting, spinning and sewing projects. I was intrigued because it was dot grid, and contained THREE different kinds of paper. And that’s how I bought my very own Archer & Olive A5 Night Sky Neapolitan Dot Grid Notebook ($34).

Before I get into that mouthful of a notebook title, Archer & Olive is a female-owned, 100% vegan company that sells journals & notebooks, markers & pens, and some accessories. Their vision is to provide folks with a way to plan their lives, tend to their mental health and explore creativity. All the products are vegan, and packaged in minimal, environmentally conscious packaging. Shipping was quick – I ordered and had my new notebook within a few days.

 

The Night Sky Neapolitan notebook is an A5, hard cover journal with a canvas covering. Thew cover is a dark navy and has the big dipper printed on it in gold foil. The journal is available in other color/graphic images as well.

Inside the front sheets are plain and give way to the star of the journal: the paper. The Neapolitan is so called because it has sections of white, black and kraft paper all featuring dot grid, bound together in one notebook. The paper is advertised as 160 GSM, ultra thick and perfect for pens, markers, fountain pen inks, paint – whatever you can throw at it. The journal contains 160 pages.

They weren’t lying about that paper. It’s super smooth and took several fountain pen inks and their Acrylograph markers (stay tuned, Ana will have a review of these soon!) with ease. There wasn’t even any show through on the opposite side of the pages, even with that acrylic marker! I will need to invest in some white gel pens for the black sections of the book, but I think I’m set for the rest.

Other fun details are the ribbon bookmarks (one has a little ampersand charm), the elastic band to hold the book closed, a pocket at the back for storing small bits and pieces and a pen loop. I’m going to be taking some classes shortly and I’ve decided this will be the notebook for all my notes related to that.

The journal is a bit on the pricey side for every day use, but if you’re looking for a nice notebook to store your thoughts or sketches, this one seems really well made and I’m excited to dig in!


DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were purchased with my own funds. Please see the About page for more details.

GIVEAWAY WINNER: Leuchtturm 1917 Drehgriffel

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway and shared your favorite Leuchtturm 1917 product. As always, I wish I had enough to give everyone something!

This time our winners of the Drehgriffels are Marci and Rob:

Thank you all so much for entering and for reading along here at The Desk! And thanks again to Leuchtturm 1917 for sending us the items for review and giveaway.