
I love the little moleskine notebooks, but my pens and markers tend to bleed through the paper, leaving the other side almost unusable. I’m now testdriving a Hand Book Artist Journal. Same dimensions as a classic pocket moly, 3.5 x 5.5 inches, but with 128 pages of thicker stock than the moly’s 192 pages. The Hand Book is thicker than the moly and has a nice fabric cover, but the elastic band feels really cheap. The color of the paper is similar to that of the moly, but it has some tooth. Price was $8 compared to $11.50 for the moly.

I’m not sure I like the new notebook. The pages don’t lay as flat as those in the moly and some of my pens don’t want to write on the paper. The pages do seem to take paint and glue a bit better, but I’m not sure how well the signatures are going to hold up. I should know more in a few weeks, as I plan to put the new book through some abuse. It’s really kind of exciting: inspiration to keep on keeping on often comes from unlikely places.

I’m still waiting for the thermometer needle to move over beyond 40 and stay there!