When United Inkdom asked me to ‘try’ the Berlin Notebook I promised them a full on assault! So, a couple of days later, a little packet arrived from Clare at Pocket Notebooks totally oblivious to what was about to happen!

The absorbent outer cover was thoroughly wetted with water and Noodler’s Rome Burning applied. It didn’t like this – and ruckled badly after saturation. The cover was then graffitied with a host of colours with most inks tending to bleed a little and the Noodler’s Rome Burning bleeding badly.

The inside paper stock is smooth, but it is no cartridge paper. I swatch tested it with Noodler’s Rome Burning and the page did ruckle a little with a hint of bleeding at the edges. When dry, the page was subjected to detailing and writing – the Noodler’s Rome Burning easily bled through the page giving bad show through on the reverse.

Next up was an abstract alphabet using Parker Quink black with Schmincke gold dust. No bleed at all and just a tiny couple of dots showing through on the reverse! Very good considering that my pen was well loaded! The metal dust behaved very well too.

So how about some journalling using Diamine Onyx, water and bleach? No bleed when writing, some ruckling from the wetted page areas – drying with just a hint of show through from the more worked areas on the illustrations. Impressive!

As a notebook for writing with fountain pen inks that are not to deep penetrating, this is a very good product – I saw no bleed and no show through. As a creative notebook incorporating illustration and painting, this works well provided you keep away from the more aggressive fountain pen inks. I used Noodler’s and bleach and dark blacks which will test most papers. Considering this paper is 120-140 gsm, at a guess, I think it did pretty well as a sketch book. Plus the fact it’s from recycled stock, which is ethically good, this little pocket rocket gets a thumbs up from me!

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I also have a portfolio of test art pieces at: https://www.behance.net/Nick_Stewart