Shizen Design Watercolor Book Black Paper Cover 8 in. x 8 in. 24 Sheets

I got one of these books from Blick. For some reason, the paper isn't very absorbant as cotton watercolor paper should be. For some parts of the page, i have to wait for water to soak into the paper before painting on it, and when damp enough, the paper starts smelling like armpits.Maybe I'm just using this paper wrong...

I have set a goal to see how to make beautiful paint on this paper, which at first I found difficult, because it is different than most papers I've used. I'm doing a series of 10, one a night, to see what comes out. I realized I just need to learn how to work with it. Make friends, so to speak. The paper is like an attractive new dance partner, who's really good, and will be bit of a challenge. But worth every minute, and make you wish you had more of it.