Strathmore Visual Journals

Just stumbled upon this new product from Strathmore. From their current promotions website:

New Strathmore® Visual Journals are engineered to meet the intense demands of the artist's creative process. They provide greater freedom of expression, offering a full range of paper types and weights requested by artists themselves. The wire binding allows the journal to lie flat and open up 360 degrees. Journals are available in three sizes, in Drawing, Mixed Media, Smooth and Vellum Bristol, and two weights of Watercolor.

The colorful paper cover is removable leaving the solid brown textured cover.

Specs for all books:

- Spiral wire-bound on the long side
- Non-perforated pages
- Acid free

Sizes & wholesale prices
- Small, 3.5" x 5", $5.00
- Medium, 5.5" x 8", $8.00
- Large, 9" x 12", $14.00

Types

Drawing 100 lb (163 g/m2)
Heavy-weight drawing paper is excellent for pencil, colored pencil and charcoal. Also good for pastel, marker, pen and ink, light mixed media and collage techniques.
Medium surface, 84 pages/42 sheets

Mixed Media 90 lb (190 g/m2)
Medium-weight paper is great for wet and dry media including watercolor, acrylic, pen and ink, pencil, crayon, charcoal, marker and collage.
Vellum surface, 68 pages/34 sheets

Bristol – Vellum 100 lb (260 g/m2)
Vellum finish is great for any dry media including pencil, charcoal and pastel. Also good for pen and ink, marker and collage.
Vellum surface, 48 pages/24 sheets

Bristol – Smooth 100 lb (260 g/m2)
Smooth surface is excellent for traditional and specialty pen and ink techniques, marker and collage.
Smooth surface, 56 pages/28 sheets

Watercolor 90 lb (190 g/m2)
Medium-weight paper is great for watercolor, acrylic and collage. Also good for pen and ink, pencil and marker.
Cold press surface, 68 pages/34 sheets

Watercolor 140 lb (300 g/m2)
Heavy-weight paper is excellent for watercolor and collage. Also good for acrylic, pen and ink, pencil and marker.
Cold press surface, 44 pages/22 sheets

I'm not a "visual journal" kinda girl slathering gesso and collaging things into my daily journal, but several aspects of these books caught my eye.

1.) The pages aren't micro-perfed for easy tear-out. THANK THE SWEET BABY JESUS AND THANK YOU STRATHMORE! Micro-perfed pages are just stupid. If I want to remove a page from the binding I can work an X-acto knife and scissors just fine thankyouverymuch.

2.) BOUND watercolor paper not in a casebound journal, in portrait format, and at a reasonable price, with plenty of pages that are not micro-perf.

3.) BOUND vellum and Bristol papers. I searched and searched and could only find this in single sheets or tape bound pads.

So, added to my art supply wish list is a medium Bristol-Smooth and a large 90lb Watercolor. Woot!

Hopefully Michaels, Hobby Lobby or Dick Blick will carry these. If not, they're just another pipe dream for me.

Oh, and Strathmore, if you find this post, update your website. I couldn't find a direct link to these journals. NOT. GOOD. BUSINESS.