Hobonichi Graph Notebook: Tomitaro Makino - Yamazakura

The standard Hobonichi Graph Notebook under a botanical plate by Tomitaro Makino, the botanist called the father of the field in Japan. The drawing is of a yamazakura, the mountain cherry, and it opened the first volume of Flora Japonica in 1900.

It was made in the Meiji era with loupes and microscopes, and it is a scientific illustration rather than decorative drawing: the whole branch, the shape of the petals and the structure of the parts are all set down in line, with shading laid in by brush to give the petals some thickness. Makino collected more than 400,000 specimens over his life and named over 1,500 species. Inside it is the ordinary Graph Notebook.

Features

• Cover plate: Makino's yamazakura, the opening illustration of Flora Japonica, 1900

• A working botanical drawing, showing branch, petal and structure rather than a stylised flower

• A 3.7 mm grid, the same one used in the Hobonichi Techo

• Grid ink cycles red, blue, green and purple every 60 pages in A6 and every 72 in A5, so an undated book still has divisions

• A6 is 148 x 105 x 8 mm (5.8 x 4.1 x 0.3 in) with 240 pages, A5 is 210 x 148 x 10 mm (8.3 x 5.8 x 0.4 in) with 288 pages

• Cut to match the Original in A6 and the Cousin in A5, so any techo cover for those sizes fits it

• Tomoe River paper, thin and light but resistant to feathering and bleed with fountain pen ink