I decide to try out a woodless water-soluble pencil. A woodless pencil means the whole pencil is made out of the lead, rather than surrounding the thin lead with a casing of wood.
The pencil I'm using is called a
Cretacolor Aqua Monolith
. You can buy them individually for about $2.00-$3.00 each. I'm just using the ivory black one here, but it comes in a set of 12 colors, which retails for about $24.00-$30.00.
Some thoughts:
1. A woodless pencil sharpens like a regular pencil, but you have to waste the pigment on the whole tool to get the sharp point.
2. The
Cretacolor Aqua Monolith is round in cross section, so it would tend to roll off a table. If it accidentally falls to the ground or slips out of your hand, it's likely to break.
3. The pencil is coated in a shiny lacquer varnish, so that it won't activate with water on the part of the pencil that you're holding.
4. The lead is quite hard, and the pencil is heavy. It feels different from water-soluble crayons or pastels, such as the
Caran d'Ache Neocolor
, which feel lighter in weight, waxier, and softer.
6. It delivers a responsive line and blends well with water, but I don't see much advantage to having the whole pencil made out of the lead unless you want to use it on its side to make large areas of tone.
With any sketching tools, my recommendation is to buy just one sample of a given product line and try it out and see if you like it before buying a whole set.
The exhibition includes over 50 drawings and it will be on view through January 12.
. You can buy them individually for about $2.00-$3.00 each. I'm just using the ivory black one here, but it comes in a set of 12 colors, which retails for about $24.00-$30.00.
to blend the pencil, and I'm drawing in a Pentalic watercolor journal
. The watercolor paper is robust enough to handle some scrubbing.
pencil and the velvety black of a Derwent Inktense
.
used in many ateliers.
and Ernest Watson's The Art of Pencil Drawing
.
and a couple of water brushes
to the collar later.
.
.
.
filled with 
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