Review: Arrtx Graphite Drawing Pencils

 

Arrtx graphite pencils come in a basic cardboard box -- until you touch the velvety surface!

With colored pencils, Arrtx grabbed me with bunnies on the box. It’s no surprise at all that the company’s graphite pencils would grab me again, this time with colored barrels! OK, I know that colorful barrels have as much to do with graphite performance as bunnies have to do with colored pencil performance. And your point is? Let’s move on, shall we?

I usually don’t say much about product packaging (well, except when bunnies are involved). This Arrtx graphite drawing pencil set comes in a typical, slide-open cardboard box – but the box feels so nice to the touch! I don’t know what that kind of paper coating is . . . slightly rubberized? It feels the way a matte surface should feel. (TMI warning: I sometimes find myself petting the box.) And there’s that bunny again!

The set of 14 pencils includes grades 4H through 8B, a solid, useful range for any kind of drawing. Arranged in grade order, I tried to find logic in the color sequence, but came up empty. Not that the colored barrels of graphite pencils need to be logical. In fact, I envy the designer who got to play with all the permutations and combinations of barrel, end cap and foil colors to come up with this festive, whimsical party.

No logic I can see to the color sequence. (I had to reshoot this one because I somehow managed to get some out of order!)

Gratuitous eye candy shot

And speaking of foiling, I waited for a sunny day to take the pencils outdoors for the glam shot below. Look at that sparkle against the lovely matte finish of the barrel paint!

Dazzling in the sunlight!

OK, it’s time to get down to business, and yet even that begins with beautiful end caps. The grade is shown on three of the six barrel sides, so no matter which way the pencil might roll on your desk, it’s easily visible somewhere. The best part, though, is the back end – yes, the grade is on the end, too! For those of us who like to store and use our pencils in cups, I think a grade on the pencil end should be essential for all graphite sets, and yet very few pencil manufacturers seem to deem this important. (The Kitaboshi Art Set is the only one I can think of offhand.)

Grades on the backend -- very handy for pencil cup users like me.

Those colored barrels also have a practical side: Most graphite sets have identical barrels for all grades, and the grades are indicated with tiny letters and numbers that I have to squint to see. I tend to use the same three or four grades, so if I used Arrtx regularly enough, the easily identifiable colors would make them easy to grab from the cup, even without the grades on the ends.

Except for one that broke during sharpening, the pencils sharpened flawlessly with my Carl Angel-5 Royal. The wood is not cedar but has a pleasant scent (or perhaps the scent is coming from the paint).

One broke during sharpening.

My swatches showed no surprises. More important, I felt no surprises – in every case, the graphite felt smooth and without gritty bits or unevenness. For the price, which is currently less than $7 (about $0.50 each), these are surprisingly good pencils. And did I mention that they have pretty colored barrels?

Swatches made in Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook

I made a test sketch in a Field Notes Streetscapes sketchbook using grades H, 4B and 8B. The graphite applies smoothly and layers reliably. While they aren’t Mitsubishi Hi-Uni smooth (at more than double the price), I’d say these Arrtx pencils are darn good drawing pencils. I would certainly recommend the set to anyone looking for decent pencils in a practical range of grades – even if they didn’t have pretty colored barrels. (But they do!)

6/29/23 Arrtx H, 4B and 8B graphite pencils in Field Notes Streetscapes sketchbook (Earthsworld reference photo)

I don’t know if other individual grades can be purchased by the dozen, but at least on Amazon, I found a box of HB.