In June 2017 a friend of mine brought me a handmade watercolor sketchbook from Fabriano. Italy. It looked beautiful and the surface of the paper felt great but my friend told me that he could not paint on it because it is a little bit tricky.
I decided to give it a try at least but it took me more than two month until I found some time to make my first brushstrokes in the sketchbook. But then I realized pretty quick what great gift my friend had given me. He was right, to paint on this paper was different to any other paper that I had used before. My painting method was pretty wet and bold at this time but on this handmade paper I had to change it. I had to reduce everything to the minimum to get a satisfying result. After a few trials I had found a way and I fell in love with this paper since. The reduction was something that I tried to achieve for a while already and this handmade paper in a small format was a great help to make some progress in this direction. The colors blend different on this paper and they dry to a fine satin coating. The first sketchbook was filled with my watercolor sketches pretty soon and I had to find out where I could get more of them. Another watercolor friend on Facebook told me that this watercolor book is probably made by Lorenzo Santoni from Fabriano and he was right. I ordered 5 more of those wonderful sketchbooks beside some single sheets of his handmade paper and one of them is always with me wherever I go. It became a ritual to me to paint one watercolor sketch per day (with some breaks when I was more into larger formats) and now, after filling 6 of these books with landscapes, trees and abandoned houses I thought it would be nice to select my favorites and collect them in a book. The original size of the sketchbook pages is aprox. 21 x 15 cm / 8.3 x 5.9 in. For this book I reproduced them as close as possible to the originals hoping that the paper structure will still be seen in the print. I hope you enjoy this selection.