#1 Focus on 🔎
Derwent's Graphitint
Welcome all,
This is the first in a new series thats is not emailed to everyone. I spoke about it here in this Newsletter last time and I profess this isn’t my idea.
I want to write more and not have writers or artists blocks.
Let’s dive straight in:
Graphitint by Derwent
Currently as of writing this they retail at £61.99, £31 and £2.59 for a 24 tin, 12 tin and open individual pencil price respectively.1 Derwent website They also do Graphitint blocks but I don’t have these
A water soluble graphite pencil that has more subtle pigments incorporated into the pencil. They can be ‘activated’ with water either directly on the paper, on a palette board first [more on this later], used into wet paper or used as a dry pencil. You can also brush the end of the pencil with your wet brush if you want more control.
With muted tones and with a good selection of greens and browns they are ideal for landscape and nature. The selection of reds and yellows are limited and they are by no means as vibrant as the Derwent Inktense range.
I have the 24 tin that I found at a very reasonable £32.00, 2nd hand like new on Vinted, so if you look around you can pick up some bargains
As with many artists and their supplies they don’t always get the use I would like. I really want to give them a good run out but as always time is always against me.
So I haven’t got much experience with them but I did swatch them out. They get used a little in some pieces for line work but not a great deal more. With this series I hope to change that and keep this article updated as necessary.
As you can see I’ve moved mine to a Derwent roll in case they go for a trip out with me!
They’ve since been reunited with their tin.
Video clip section and samples
In this clip I show how it is possible to use a cheap slightly textured nylon ‘chopping board’ to also activate the colour. I’ve used number 01 Port and 05 Shadow in this example.
The notebook is a cheap booklet from Jacksons art, ideal for this type of thing [140gsm studio sketchbook currently £0.95]
Here’s a little piece I tried in my Fabriano sketchbook.
There is some traditional watercolour on here as the yellow on the ladies leg blanket wasn’t vivid enough for my liking. The outline was done with no. 23 cool grey and subsequently gone over with Lamy Safari with Platinum black carbon ink
The original photo is courtesy of 2Rishi on Unsplash if you want to go take a look.
https://www.derwentart.com/en-gb/c/professional-products/drawing/watersoluble-graphitint?srsltid=AfmBOoosw2hpQEX06KhMYvszse_X-6p3TuUEKQlLkS-sJFhnd223Nr0j
https://unsplash.com/photos/a-woman-sells-produce-on-a-city-street-gm7itcCICqw
I have taken to carrying a small sheet of textured plastic around for use with watersoluble pencils, as per your tip…extremely handy, thank you😊. I like the graphitint colours…using them a bit more now😊
Yes, it's very useful and cheaper than buying the caran d'ache version 😀.
I should try and use them a little more. The colours are lacking in the yellow and red spectrum, but I've been using them with watercolours as well.
I'll get around to my limited supply of Inktense in this series too.