Although a few, including my favorite have closed, around where I live in Paris are some great art supply stores.  I am fortunate in all of them being a five to ten minute walk.

One of them is really savvy in stocking the end cap by the register with a rotating supply of sketchpads. These are not cut-outs or discontinued brands & styles but rather quality things you did not realize you needed until waiting in line to pay.

If there is even one person in front of me in line, i always end up getting a pad.

I had gotten a really nice hardcover landscape sketch pad. It was not something I used all the time, returning to it when I wanted to mix things up a little. Sometimes I would lay the pad on the table vertically rather than horizontally.

I just finished a beautiful portrait which i will not tempt fate by posting here as it is  NSFW (it is up on my flicker & Saatchi page though). Between that, overseeing the release of my new short story collection & Easter, I have been full out. These are final pages of landscape notebook which I filled over the weekend.