I've had this laying around for nearly a year and am now sorry I didn't try it sooner. It is very good with conte' type crayons, wax crayons and colored pencil, pastel pencils and graphite. The texture feels smooth but acts a bit toothy [with a very fine grain] so it's easy to get a range of tones. I have not tried it with traditional pen and ink and I only use technical pens for sketching details--no issues for me, but I am not pushing the medium either. Where it really stands out for me is that it is good with water based markers, so I'm not limited if I need that dark that only ink can give. I cannot tolerate alcohol based markers so I often use W&N watercolor markers or water based kid markers for sketching. If you have never used them, they are horrendous at bleeding through. Even most illustrator marker papers are not immune when the markers are water based. So I've mostly used mixed media paper which is more than twice the price and overkill if I'm not using markers or am brainstorming. This paper is not as heavy as mixed media paper but still can take several wet layers before bleeding, and then it did not go through to the next sheet. It can take light waterbrush usage but the marker ink sinks in somewhat so the original lines still show through the 'wash'. Also because of it's lighter weight, wide or dark markers can shadow. So it's a good inexpensive workhorse paper for traditional and water based marker sketching and let's me reserve the mixed media paper for heavier techniques and more finished work. And it's a big plus for me that it is archival, rare at this price, since I keep a quite a few of my concept sketches.
