No color this week ! Just graphite and studies in black and white. But this is a very nice tool to work with and i’ll explain why in this post !
But before talking about the tool i want to present a little bit my reference pictures. Of course for an easy subject i always choose my cat. It’s the prefect subject for trying a new tool. So i choose a picture with contrast and a nice pose so that i can also enjoy the drawing part ! My second subject is a landscape with lots of different textures. I love this picture and i would like to be able to paint it on a big sheet. But i can’t make up my mind on how to work this one so today i’ll make a tonal study with it so that maybe i’ll have a better understanding of it.
But now let’s talk about the star of the day : watersoluble graphite. It’s a tool looking like a regular pencil but with no wood around. Just paper in order to protect fingers when drawing with it. It can be found in other format such as a pan and you can use it like a watercolor pan with a brush. But here i can draw with my pencil and i’ll be able to smudge and blur the line later with a brush an water. And once my drawing is done i also can add more graphite by taking the pigment from the pencil directly on my brush and then paint with it like a regular watercolor.
This tool doesn’t need lots of supplies to go with : paper, brush and water. It’s the perfect tool to boost creativity. You can just play and have fun with it without all the usual mess with watercolor. It’s easy to take it with you wherever you go and perfect to draw on the go ! The only drawback for me is that it doesn’t mix well with colors. Watercolor pencils or regular watercolor from my palette, they all get muddy and weird with the graphite. it’s much better to use it alone for my taste.
Watersoluble graphite in video
Supplies :
Brush : Princeton Neptune 1/2″.
Papers : Saunder waterford rough, Canson héritage hot pressed.
Colors : Derwent graphitone 6B.
And here you have the two little studies (click to enlarge) :
