A Few Comments on Tinted Graphite

 

10/20/21 Cretacolor AquaGraph in Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

Now that our beloved Daniel Smith store is closing, our brick-and-mortar options are few. Artist & Craftsman Supply is a decent and convenient choice (one of my first stops after I got vaccinated), but the selection is somewhat limited. A much better selection can be found at Blick, but that store has always been inconvenient to me: scarce, expensive parking or a lengthy bus ride, despite being only a few miles away. However, with the opening of two new light rail stations, both extremely convenient to me, Blick is suddenly much more accessible: an easy, 10-minute train ride away.

"Tinted graphite" pencils, from top: Cretacolor AquaGraph, Caran d'Ache Technalo RGB, Derwent Graphitint, Spectrum Noir ColourTint

All of that is a long-winded way of explaining how I found myself in possession of a new Cretacolor AquaGraph pencil last week when Greg and I took the light rail to Capitol Hill. (Our destination was lunch, but Blick was only a couple of blocks away – what a coincidence!) I know Blick’s online catalog fairly well, so I didn’t expect to find anything new, but there it was – a water-soluble pencil that had managed to escape my radar (clearly, I’m off my game). I came home with a green one. It’s also available in red and blue. 

Cretacolor AquaGraph is an interesting hybrid of graphite and “color” (pigment or dye; information on specific product content is usually scarce from manufacturers). I have three other such “tinted graphite” pencils: Caran d’Ache Technalo RGB, Derwent Graphitint and Spectrum Noir ColourTint.

All four swatches are subtle shades of green.

Although I’m not a huge fan of Cretacolor’s color products, I love the Austrian company’s Nero pencils, and its Graphite Aquarell pencils have strong washes. Similarly, the AquaGraph has a surprisingly rich wash with a subtle green tint that only appears when activated with water. Although the barrel is labeled HB, the 4mm (unfortunately off-center) core feels much softer.

In terms of wash quality, AquaGraph seems most similar to Caran d’Ache’s RGB pencils but with a higher ratio of color to graphite. It’s also similar to Caran d’Ache in appearing much like ordinary graphite when dry. Both Derwent Graphitint and Spectrum Noir Colourtint are disappointing by comparison: Although they exhibit slightly more color in their dry states and come in a much wider range of colors, both have weak washes when activated. (In my sample swatches, I chose Derwent and Spectrum Noir greens that came closest to the AquaGraph’s green.)

“Neither here nor there” but somewhere between water-soluble graphite and watercolor pencils, tinted graphite pencils are typically not what I reach for. On this day last week, however, portentous of the “bomb cyclone” of wind and rain headed our way, the subtle tint seemed just right for the wet, gray, toneless scene outside my studio window. The green tint hardly registers visually as a hue, but I like the contrast between the activated areas (houses) and the dry marks (foliage).

The eraser shown in the image is only to keep the round pencil from rolling. I did not test the pencil for erasability.