Somewhere in this house, I know that I have a spiral bound sketchbook with black paper. As I was ripping the house apart looking for it, I found this instead- a Bienfang Notesketch. It's almost fully used, and I think I bought it about 4 or 5 years ago at a Dick Blick store. It's a nice little book, only slightly larger than a Moleskine.
In the small version, each page is divided into two sections. A little more than half of the page is blank for sketching, and the bottom is ruled. (In the larger version, the ruling/blank is split vertically)
Each book provides 64 pages of smooth, bright white, acid-free paper and in this 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 version, the lines are 5mm apart.
Since I acquired this book long before I started using fountain pens, and since it's been sitting neglected in a drawer for so long, I felt obligated to give it the old Biffybeans Fountain Pen test. (The BBFPT)
The paper is really smooth with every FP tested. It is not shiny, and takes all but the hardest pencils really well. Light watercolor washes are ok, but the paper isn't terribly thick and there will be some buckling.
Of all the inks tested, none feathered or spread at all, but there was a little bleeding, especially with the wider nibbed pens and highly saturated inks. (The .07 CI with the Midnight Blues was the worst offender, followed by the Sapporo with the Imperial Purple.) All in all, considering the smoothness of the paper, I would buy another one of these.
They are Made in the USA, cost $3.98 and you can Buy them Online at Blick.com
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