HIMI Gouache Pad

very nice paper and wire bound makes it easy to carry around. It takes the gouache and watercolor I use equally well.

Really nice paper. Love the block style to help keep the paper from curling while wet (which I think a lot of people on here speak negatively about it because they don't know how to use it). My only complaint about the paper was that the 7X10 measurement includes the unusable parts of the paper where the holes and the metal spiral that holds the pad together are. I'll have to change the measurements of the work that I bought the paper for.

I really like this art pad. I got this with my order of Himi jelly goauche paints. The price was reasonable, and since it's from the same brand I felt it would work well with the paints. I was right, it worked perfectly with my paints! The pad is spiraled, but also is glued at the free edges to prevent curling while painting. Once the painting is completely dry, use a palette knife to separate the page from the notebook. You can either tear the finished pages out, or just leave it in for a satisfying flip through when you've filled the sketchbook. The paper grain is a nice quality, and I didn't notice any issues while painting on it. The paint was vibrant against the paper, and once dry I was able to flip the page aside and move to the next one. I'm about halfway through it now, because I'm a slow painter, but I will definitely be ordering another one when I've finished this one. This is a random thing, but I thought the cover design was funny and cute. It made me smile.

Wonderful product!

this product works great! i am using himi gouache with this!! nice paper n it works quite well, and if you’re wondering this paper is also decent for alcohol markers. one issue is that the paper is stuck together. i get that this is for the paper to not curl as you paint, but its difficult to separate the paper without it tearing the edges a little which is a little bit frustrating

Great buy and quality

I'm not sure if its supposed to have this, but the top and bottom of the pages were glued together. I had to run a plastic card to separate each page, but the glue was so strong that the paper ended up ripping almost every time. I only got about 10 good pages from the entire pad. Look somewhere else for a gouache pad.

The paper wasn't very thick and it rippled

This gouache pad combines the best of a sketchbook with a block (watercolour paper often comes in blocks with the edges glued down so it won't misbehave while we paint). The block style keeps the paper flat-ish but when finished, we have a spiral-bound sketchbook. Very nice idea. The paper in this book is glued down on the top and bottom edges so that it doesn't curl up while we paint. When the painting is finished, I just run a palette knife gently under the page and it reveals the next page, ready to paint. But does it work? Yes, for the most part. In the photos, I used himi jelly gouache. The paper in this gouache pad is thinner than I am used to. Quite a bit thinner than watercolour paper. I was worried it wouldn't hold up to the paint but gave it a try anyway. When the paint is fairly dry (not much water added) the paper doesn't seem to mind at all. A wet wash (lots of water to very little paint), like I would for watercolour, caused the paper to wriggle around a bit, but once it dried, it calmed right down and was only slightly wavy. The glue really helped to keep it calm. The amount of water makes a difference to how much the paper reacts. There was no bleeding (paint/ink goes through the paper) through to the other side but there is some ghosting (where we can see the ink/paint from the back side of the paper but it didn't actually come through the paper). To me, it's enough ghosting that I wouldn't want to paint on both sides. I would also be worried about reactivating the paint on the other side too, so, I'm going to leave every other page blank. That means this pad will only give me 50 paintings, not 100 as I had hoped. Then again, the spiral-bound book makes it hard to paint on the reverse side. When the page is detached from the block (when we run a palette knife along to remove the glue top and bottom), it does curl up a bit but I think this will flatten out over time if the book is kept closed. To avoid this, maybe choose a book with a thicker paper. But I don't mind as this is my practice book. On the whole, I love it! It's perfect for someone like me who is new to gouache and doesn't really know what kind of paper to go with. The texture of the paper is fairly smooth compared to watercolour hard press, but not as smooth as hot press. Perfect tooth to hold gouache paint. The only downside - and this is true for any block-style paper - is that I can only work on one painting at a time. I might buy a second book so I can start sketching out the next painting while I wait for the other one to dry. And if the maker ever reads this - it would be epic if you included one of those plastic tools for separating the paper as it's easy for a clutz like me to damage the next paper when using a metal palette knife if I'm not paying attention.

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Really great. The pages are glued to prevent curling which is an awesome feature. To separate them, just use a knife or sharp scissors.

I have not opened up the plastic wrap around the book yet so no review on paper quality, etc. **hoooowever** the cover image does not resemble the cover i thought i was getting at all. This was disappointing.

I bought this pad as a travel gouache sketcher. It fits in a bag well, but once the edges are taped off, the canvas can feel a little small-- that's the trade-off you get for portability. It held well to the watercolour block until it was time to release the page, and separated cleanly. Keep in mind that at 98 pounds you will get a little show-through on the opposite side of each sheet, so it's advised to only use one side of the page, or only do pencil-sketches on the opposite side.