Review: Schut Sketchpad 180gsm

This is the Schut 180gsm Sketchpad that I bought recently at Straits Commercial. Schut is a paper mill in Holland and was founded in 1618 so they have been making paper for almost 400 years.

I'm not someone who buys sketchpads but the striking pink coloured cover caught my attention.

There are 70 pages of fine grain textured acid-free off-white paper. It's only textured on one side.

It's bind in such a way that the spine is not glued to the cover.

The paper is wonderful for ink sketching.

Close up of the bigger sketch.

At the top right are strokes from a Sharpie Extra Fine. The rest are all from felt tip Pentel Tradio Stylo sketch pen.

Fountain pens with liquid ink will produce sharper edges.

Works well enough with ink washes. However for large areas of ink there will still be slight warping of the paper.

Even thought the paper is 180gsm, it feels much thinner. Watercolour on it will warp the paper. So it's not suitable for watercolour although you can make do with really light washes.

The paper when used with watercolour has a slight texture that I feel is somewhere between hotpress and coldpress. The strokes here are with a fountain pen.

Here are some sketches with pencils, a 2mm and 0.5mm leads.

Markers work well too. There's no feathering. It barely bleeds through to the opposite page but you do see obvious impression from the previous page. I prefer smoother paper for markers though.

This is a wonderful paper for casual sketching. It's good for pencil and ink works primary. I love the fine grain texture.

The price at the time I bought it was SGD $14 (~USD $10.60).