While not perfect for more completed watercolour studies, I find the Alpha books to be a great everyday paper, and I like the fact that you get lots of pages to play with. There is a new square format that I have yet to try. I have a pocket version that I've used as a portable notebook and I've used a number of the spiral 10' x 7 ' landscape books with 50 sheets (100 pages).

I've also enjoyed the larger 8' x 10' portrait soft cover book, with 46 sheets (92 pages) for workshop demonstrations and larger test pages. I have used a number of the 9' x 6' portrait hard cover books, as they are a good size for transporting and they have a lot of pages - 62 sheets (124 both sides). The Alpha comes in so many shapes and sizes that it takes some thinking to decide which to get. I have used many of them as my 'play' books, where I test colours, do quick sketches, create demonstrations while teaching, take notes and so on.

However it is designed for 'dry media, light washes, ink' and works very well for these. As you might guess from the photo above of just some of my Alpha sketchbooks, my favourite Stillman & Birn is the 150gsm Alpha, which is a bit of a surprise as it is not, strictly speaking, a watercolour sketchbook.

Pro art spiral bound sketch book