Open an account online in under two minutes and start shopping at wholesale prices straight away.
Open an account online in under two minutes and start shopping at wholesale prices straight away.
Buying in bulk for a one-off project? Spend £240 (£200 + VAT) on the website and 45% comes off at checkout.
Our black paper sketchbooks give pale, bright and metallic media a dark ground to shine against: heavyweight black pages that hold gel pen, coloured pencil, pastel and chalk without buckling. Drawing on black changes how colour reads, so white lines glow and bright pigments lift off the page. It is a chance to experiment with a completely different background to your art, and the same black pages make a striking base for scrapbooks and photo albums too.
At a glance
Colours pop on black
A dark ground makes gel pen, pastel and bright pigment lift off the page.
Holds pigment without buckling
Takes layering and mixed-media projects without the page cockling.
Doubles as a scrapbook or album
The black page makes whatever you glue or stick pop, and stands up to adhesives.
A black paper sketchbook turns the usual approach on its head. Instead of laying a dark medium on a light page, you work light onto dark, so pale, bright and metallic colours do the talking. If you have only ever drawn on white and want a new way to push your technique, a black sketchbook is a genuinely different surface to think on.
When you buy a black paper sketchbook, the first thing to think about is what shows up on the dark background. Opaque and pale media are the ones that sing: white and metallic gel pens, soft and oil pastels, chalk and coloured pencil all read vividly against black. Our shimmer metallic paints are especially at home here, catching the light in a way they never could on white. Transparent media like ordinary watercolour and standard fineliners barely register, because they lean on the white of the paper for their brightness, so reach for pigments that sit on top of the surface.
It is not only for drawing. Because black pages frame photographs and keepsakes so well, many customers use these books as a black scrapbook, a memory book or a traditional-style photo album. The heavyweight paper takes glue, tape and photo corners without wrinkling, so pages stay flat however much you add.
Black paper also suits particular subjects. Night scenes, galaxies and space, fireworks, the Northern Lights, neon and pop art, and silhouette work are all far easier and more striking on a dark ground, which is why so many GCSE and KS3 schemes of work make use of it. It stands up to classroom life too, taking wet and mixed media better than standard cartridge and showing less grubbiness, smudging and pencil wear over a term of heavy handling.
Its one limit is everyday graphite and pen sketching, where a white page still wins. Most teachers treat a black sketchbook as a companion to a white-paged one rather than a replacement, which is why a lot of schools buy both.
Teaching, or buying for a group?
Order black paper sketchbooks in bulk on account, with school-friendly terms.