A sketchbook from Milan — colour, structure and a quiet kind of magic.
During a short trip to Milan, I wandered into a small Fabriano boutique. I’ve loved stationery and paper shops since childhood, and Fabriano feels like the highest level of that obsession. For anyone who works with paper, it’s simply a wonderful place to be.
I left with a Woodstock Wonders sketchbook — filled with coloured paper.
On paper (literally), it has its limits. The paper works best with dry media, won’t tolerate watercolour, and even heavier ink is pushing it. And yet, it’s one of those sketchbooks you immediately want to use.
Colour that does some of the thinking.
The coloured pages are what make it special. They invite experimentation and quietly organise ideas at the same time. Without planning it, each colour started to hold a separate project. One tone, one direction. The palette feels intuitive enough that ideas seem to land where they belong. Not magic — just good design doing its job.
The physical object matters.
The sketchbook has no spine, which gives it a lot of charm and lets the coloured pages show from the side. It opens perfectly flat, making it genuinely comfortable to draw in — a small thing that makes a big difference over time.
The soft cover is both a plus and a minus. On a desk, it’s great. Sitting in a hospital bed, balanced on a knee — less ideal. But the cover is paper too, which means it’s also drawable. I’ll take that trade-off.
Chaos, structure and collage.
A sketchbook doesn’t have to choose between chaos and structure — and this one doesn’t. Some pages are organised and intentional, others are messy, fast and exploratory. That’s exactly what a sketchbook should be: always within reach, always ready for whatever is needed in that moment.
The coloured paper also makes it particularly good for collage. Working on a tinted surface instantly opens up new combinations and contrasts, allowing collage elements to behave differently than they would on white paper. It adds another layer of play — and possibility — to the process.
From pages to finished work.
Some of the sketches in this notebook have already grown into finished illustrations now living in my portfolio. Others are very close — complete in direction and intent, simply waiting to be executed.
If there is any magic here, it’s a quiet one — created not by the object itself, but by materials that stay out of the way and let the work take its own shape.
