8 Best Watercolor Sketchbooks

Watercolor can be considered quite a complicated medium to work with. It requires thick paper (such as found in watercolor sketchbooks), it’s harder to control because it demands lots of water, and some artists may view its colors as dull.

But in fact, it can be really fun and easy to use watercolor, and you will fall in love with it if you avoid some common mistakes.

Choosing the right watercolor sketchbook is half of the entire result because with the wrong paper everything can go wrong and your drawing will be ruined.

How many of us tried to use watercolor on regular printing paper as kids and were disappointed with the dirt and wrinkled paper? But fear no more, we’ll explain to you how to choose the right paper for your watercolor’s best performance.

The most important things you have to pay your attention to when choosing watercolor sketchbooks are texture, quality, and weight.

Watercolor Sketchbooks: Texture

The texture is produced by three various ways of making paper. While certain roughness is a subjective choice most of the times, depending on your personal preferences and drawing style, it’s still important to know the paper types.

The most expensive, durable and textured is handmade paper with its irregular texture and pleasant heaviness.

The mold-made paper goes next, being the most common and popular paper type due to its affordability, nice double-sided texture, and pretty high quality.

The third type is machine-made paper, that can be good for beginners’ practicing but won’t tolerate much water and rough techniques.

Watercolor Sketchbooks: Quality

Quality of the paper can be either artists’ quality or students’ quality.

Artists’ quality paper is always acid-free and won’t alter the colors of your drawings or make them duller.

Students’ quality paper is good if you’re a beginner and you need to practice a lot, but be ready that it won’t perform very well, and it will definitely yellow over time.

Watercolor Sketchbooks: Weight

Weight of the watercolor paper will help the colors not to bleed to the other side or to the sheets under it. It also defines whether the paper will buckle under water drops or not.

The heavier the paper, the more water it can endure and absorb.

You can still use paper that is relatively light (around 160 gsm) if you stretch it before painting. Stretching means soaking it in warm water for some time, placing it on a flat surface and securing it with tape, pins or paper clips.

But the best watercolor paper will be 300 gsm and thicker.

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8 Best Watercolor Sketchbooks

You can always buy separate sheets or blocks of paper, but the most common, convenient and esthetic way to stack watercolor paper and store your finished works are sketchbooks.

They can be bought for yourself or given as gifts, and they will look classy and esthetic either way. We prepared a small list of high-quality watercolor sketchbooks that you can choose from.

1. Canson XL Series Mix Media Paper Pad

This Canson paper pad is one of the best affordable choices for watercolor painting.

It’s really more of a paper pad rather than a sketchbook because the perforation is done really thoroughly and the pages can rip off easily if you flip it through. But other than that, it’s wonderful.

The spiral binding and hard cardboard backing are very convenient and allow you to flip the pages, lay it flat or use it comfortably while drawing on your lap. Therefore, it’s perfect for both field trips, or plein air drawing, and indoor practicing.

The 60 acid-free sheets of this drawing pad are 7 x 10 inches in size. They are true sized, which means the binding and perforation aren’t included in the size, and you’ll get a 7” x 10” sheet after you tear it out. The fine, toothy texture makes the sheets easy to clean, so you will be able to erase and blend the dry mediums really well.

The paper is 160 gsm, heavy and sturdy. It’s suitable for almost every media, both dry and wet, and especially for watercolor washes (exactly what we need). The list also includes pencils, various inks and pens, pastel, charcoal, acrylic and alcohol-based markers, acrylic paints, and gouache.

Best Price to Buy It: Amazon OR Blick

2. ARTEZA Watercolor Book

Unlike the previous one, this watercolor sketchbook is supposed to be a bound art journal, and it does its job incredibly well.

You probably won’t be able to lay it completely flat, but no pages will fall out and the binding won’t break even if you treat the sketchbook pretty roughly and carry it around in your bag all the time.

The pack of two 8.3 x 11.7” sketchbooks contains 64 sheets in each book. It will last for a long time and hold a lot of your doodles, notes and completed drawings inside. Each sheet has texture on both of its sides, offering you even more space for unfolding your creativity.

The acid-free cold-pressed paper has the perfect texture, just the right amount of tooth for watercolor drawings and mixed media art. The 230 gsm paper is thick and sturdy enough to perform well under wet mediums without wrinkling, but you can use it with dry mediums as well.

The stylish, sleek and sturdy hard cover of this sketchbook is bound with linen. It looks great, protects the paper and the drawings inside, and also closes with a tight rubber band for extra safety and convenience. There is also an expandable pocket on the back cover to stack paper bits, postcards, sketches, collage or journal materials, and other little things.

Best Price to Buy It: Amazon OR Arteza

3. Canson Artist Series Watercolor Pad

It’s hard to underestimate how gorgeous, sturdy and pleasant to touch heavyweight paper is.

Every artist who works with wet mediums knows that, and it’s also common knowledge that the heavier the paper, the better it works with watery paints like watercolors, and the less the chance that the painting medium will bleed through.

This watercolor pad contains 20 sheets of cold press acid-free mold-made watercolor paper that performs extremely well with all possible wet mediums. You can erase, blend, erase again, create multiple layers of washes, the colors will dry quickly, and the paper will pass it all with flying colors. It also features a removable half-sheet with techniques and tips, which you can use as a bookmark.

The sheets are 5.5 inches x 8.5 inches, true sized – their size doesn’t include the binding. All of them are microperforated for easy removal, and the binding is spiral, allowing you to lay the sketchpad flat on your desk or flip it around to only use one sheet. If you’re left-handed – just turn it over! Another great thing is that the texture is similar on both sides of the sheets.

The size of this watercolor pad makes it portable enough to be carried around, and it will be a great companion for your plein air painting sessions or on-the-go travel sketches – whatever you want.

Best Price to Buy It: Amazon OR Blick

4. ARTEZA Watercolor Pad

This is actually a pack of three exquisite watercolor pads with heavyweight 300 gsm paper for all of your watercolor needs and requirements.

That’s 90 sheets total, with just the perfect texture for watercolor painting, not too rough and not too smooth. A lot of space to explore your creativity and try out everything you wanted to try on paper like that.

The paper is acid-free, so your drawings won’t fade over time and their colors will not alter. It’s also sturdy enough for large watercolor washes, it’s not going to warp, and none of your drawing mediums will bleed through and ruin other sheets. So you don’t have to remove them from the pad until you finish an entire page.

The binding of this watercolor pad is spiral, which is very convenient for lots of artists, and that’s exactly what they prefer. The pages are easy to remove, they are true-sized and nicely perforated for safe removal. Due to the cardboard backing, you can use this pad anywhere – at home or in nature, on any possible flat (or not very flat) surface or on your own lap.

Dry media is also possible to use on this paper, so you can create true mixed media masterpieces without any issues. Erase, blend and apply water, and don’t worry about ruining the sheet.

Best Price to Buy It: Amazon OR Arteza

5. Moleskine Art Watercolor Album

Moleskine is a very famous sketchbook, notebook, and planner brand, and both the looks and the quality of their products are great.

This particular product is a hardcover large album for watercolor drawings, with pretty unusual paper orientation. Not too many artists work most of their time with spreads like these, but why not try out something unusual and step out of your artistic comfort zone?

The binding of this album allows you to lay the Moleskine flat, but you don’t really have to outline and fill entire spreads if you’re not comfortable enough, you can just view it as two separate horizontal pages. The cover is laconic, stylish and very durable: it will protect all of your drawings and keep them nice and flat. The elastic closure adds extra points to safety and carrying convenience.

The thick, high-quality 200 gsm paper is perfectly textured and will perform well with any wet media: watercolor paints, acrylic paints, gouache, inks and pens, markers. You will have 72 big pages of acid-free cold pressed paper to let your creativity out. The sheets have an identical texture on both of their sides.

This album also features an accordion pocket inside to hold your extra papers, doodles, things you want to glue to your spreads later, and many many more of the lovely keepsakes from the times when you had this journal.

Best Price to Buy It: Amazon OR Blick

6. Field Artist Rectangle Watercolor Journal

This watercolor journal, as its brand suggests, will be perfect for your field trips and drawing on-the-go.

The hard cover allows it to happen and keeps all of the drawings safe while you carry the journal around anywhere you want. The rubber band protects the journal from opening inside the bag and the drawings or paper inside being damaged.

The rectangular format allows you to draw landscapes, but you’re not supposed to if it’s not your cup of tea. It works pretty well for other kinds of drawings, for notes, or for filling the pages with random doodles. After all, you’re the master of your sketchbooks.

It contains 40 sheets (or 80 pages) of acid-free, recycled cold press paper. Its thickness is 200 gsm, which is perfectly good for wet mediums and watercolor washes, and the texture of the paper is absolutely perfect as well, nice to touch, and holds dry mediums as well.

The journal is hardbound in soft thermo-PU leather, which makes it look amazingly stylish. The logo is embossed on the back to make it minimalistic, yet very good looking as well. It also has a feature of 4-panel panorama fold-out on its back cover, which looks great, and you can use however you like.

Best Price to Buy It: Amazon

7. Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolor Paper Journal

This journal can be used either as a horizontal album or as a vertical notebook with the spiral binding on its top.

Either way, it’s an extremely convenient 5 x 7” journal that will fit in any bag and would be very easy to carry around. The size of it would be enough for both small sketches and completed watercolor works.

It contains 15 sheets of high-quality cold-pressed 300 gsm watercolor paper. It’s thick and sturdy enough to withstand watercolor washes, dip pens, and rough drawing techniques. It’s achieved by using traditional cylinder mold, which makes the paper fibers interwoven.

The texture of the paper is even and not too rough, and turns out to be just perfect for watercolor paintings. It holds color really well, has amazing flow properties, rejects more light to make your works look brighter, and dries easily without wrinkling. The paper is made of 100% pure cotton, which makes it absolutely non-toxic and acid-free.

Designed by experts specifically for watercolor, this journal will be able to become your trustful companion on your artistic journey. It will handle all of your possible ideas, and you’ll always be satisfied with how the result looks on paper.

Best Price to Buy It: Amazon OR Blick

8. Field Artist Masters Series Square Watercolor Journal

This watercolor journal is a perfect option for those who love the square format of their drawings. Perfect for Instagram 😉

Due to its binding, you may not be able to lay it very flat and view an entire spread as one piece of art, but if it’s the way you view it, it’s still okay. But it would be absolutely best to use it for square illustrations, portraits, sketches or landscape paintings. A bonus four-panel panorama fold-out inside the back cover can be a great and nontrivial addition to your completed journal.

It features 48 pages of heavyweight high-quality 300 gsm paper, that is acid-free and 100% recycled. You will absolutely love the texture of this paper and how much it can handle, being made specifically for wet mediums like watercolor and inks. It can work put with other mediums as well, and nothing will bleed to other sheets.

The size of this journal (5 x 5 inches) will make it a wonderful travel journal that can fit in any bag, backpack or suitcase. It’s hardbound in soft leather, making it really durable and extremely stylish. It also closes with a rubber band to keep its insides safe from possible rough handling in the bag.

Best Price to Buy It: Amazon

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Now that you know how to choose paper and what exactly do you want from the watercolor sketchbooks, you can buy yourself one and start creating. No matter if you want a pocket-sized journal or a giant paper pad – there are products specifically for your tastes out there.

All you have to do is practice a lot, and don’t be afraid of starting a new sketchbook or drawing on a blank sheet. They are meant to be filled with drawings, and it’s okay to make mistakes. Especially when they can be corrected pretty easily if you’re using watercolor on sturdy paper. Good luck!