Review — The Art Blog — BIRD

I’m not sure how I ended up being introduced to ArtGraf Watercolour Graphite (perhaps my brother, who is interested in calligraphy, brought it to my attention), but I’ve had a tin for a couple years. This is a very unusual product. As far as I know, it’s unique in the art materials market.

ArtGraf is a line of water-soluble graphite products from the Viarco company. According to the company’s website, watercolor graphite was discovered in 1990 by a meeting of minds between Viarco manager António José Vieira Araújo and painter Jose Emidio. But the products weren’t released until 2007. This article gives a little more information about the company and the discovery. And a little treat: here is the painter himself working with the tailor chalk version of the product!

From the Viarco website: “ArtGraf graphite watercolour is a revolutionary product that totally changes the artist’s relationship with graphite. Pencil painting is perhaps the best expression to define the artistic potential of this material, with which the user can obtain the full scale graphite shades, only with a brush and water. Possible to apply on different surfaces, fast drying, but with great capacity of correction, the ArtGraf watercolours are ground-breaking products.”

By the way, I am not endorsed by Viarco or receiving anything for this review.

Novice artists generally start out using graphite pencils to learn the basic principles of art. This is a very cool, topsy-turvy, almost Wonka-esque reinvention of this familiar medium. This watercolor graphite behaves almost like you imagine it should and retains some of the traditional graphite traits. I’m not sure how they suspend the ultrafine graphite particles, but I would assume some proprietary suspension agent like in pan watercolors.

I’ve used this a couple times for paintings such as “Ophelia.” So, it isn’t new to me, but I revisited it with a more critical eye.

Let’s dive into the details, shall we?

I “test drove” this on a piece of 400 series Strathmore watercolor paper. This paper is my go-to paper for painting. The Viarco blurb says that it can be used on a variety of surfaces. Thus far, I’ve only used it on this Strathmore paper and some artisanal 100% cotton watercolor paper from a local shop. I’m not sure that I would use it on anything other than watercolor paper. I think it’s just the nature of the beast when you’re working with something with a high water/liquid content. It could be added to other vehicles (oil or acrylic paints, for instance)…but that’s an experiment for another day.

I applied this to the paper in four ways: wet on wet, wet on dry, dry on dry, and dry on wet.

In wet on wet and wet on dry applications it performs very similarly to watercolor. The graphite is heavier than your usual watercolor pigment. It drifts beautifully in water, but doesn’t flow or bleed as much. So, those lovely formations that you get in watercolor occur here, but on a smaller scale. Wet on dry easily achieves very dense, opaque darks. I didn’t try dry brushing at all. Water is very quickly evaporated/absorbed in the tin. It helps to have a palette with wells when working with this product. When it’s watered down, it’s important to make sure that the graphite is well mixed before moving to paper as the graphite particles tend to settle.

Another thing to consider when working: it can be difficult to layer. Previous layers, even dry, tend to migrate when a wet layer is applied overtop. It’s not impossible, you just have to be careful and intentional.

In dry on dry applications it’s indistinguishable from powdered graphite. I scraped some out of the tin using a knife and then ground them into the paper with a brush. A blending stump, tortillion, or fingertip would also be perfect tools. It’s easy enough to move around, if messy. If you tend to work this way with traditional graphite, I’d suggest giving this a try and then experimenting with adding water by brush or perhaps spray bottle to complete/semi-complete pieces. I imagine some very cool effects could be achieved this way.

When dried, the graphite is still somewhat mobile. You can blend it out across your paper to some degree. If applied wet, some will be locked deeper into the body of the paper and not be able to pulled across the paper’s surface. That said, I achieved some wonderfully soft gradients using this method.

With this in mind, finished pieces do need to be protected with a spray fixative or they will smudge.

Dry on wet was something different all together. I’m not sure how I feel about it or sure how I would put this application into use. It would be difficult to control values. It probably would work best to add texture to darks or as an effect added to a finished piece.

In the second set of boxes I put the claim that it is “completely erasable” to the test. On the right half of each I tried to pull the graphite up. And I have to say, I wouldn’t consider this erasable. Application method and intensity greatly changes how removable it is. I tried two types of eraser and I had the best results with a kneadable eraser. Rolling it over the square rather than scrubbing and kneading the eraser often picked up the most graphite. The other eraser I used (Staedtler Mars plastic) did almost nothing. Actually, it seemed to grind it into the paper more and made it shiny. It would take a lot of effort to pull up the darkest values. Most likely, the paper would be ruined before the graphite came up sufficiently. Dry rubbed in graphite on dry paper came up fairly well, pretty similar to regular graphite, but there was still some staining.

I did some fun experiments as well by mixing some scrapings into ink and watercolor (both Winsor & Newton). I think in the future I would pick a watercolor without chalk in it. I think this made it too heavy. The far right square shows almost none of the flow that watercolor is known for. The ink seemed to behave more or less normally. In both cases, a darker ink or watercolor would be a better choice, but for illustration purposes yellow worked very well. I’m not sure what applications mixing the graphite into ink or watercolor would have for me personally, but who knows.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
I thoroughly enjoy this product. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys watercolor. They operate on nearly the same principles. It intrigues me in the same way. It’s versatile, unusual, and challenging. It encourages experimentation and creativity. I really should pull this out more often. I feel like I’ve only discovered the tip of the iceberg as to what this is capable with this medium. I’m imagining stencils, layering over watercolor or ink, multimedia opportunities, pulling out ghostly shapes with eraser…the possibilities are endless! And unlike watercolor, which has a long, established tradition, this is a very new product and no rules about use/misuse.

I was also recently gifted the ArtGraf water-soluble Tailor Shapes in the primary colors. I hope to do a review of those as well.

If you enjoyed this review you may also like my reviews of the Sennelier Metal Pocket Set and Winsor & Newton Cotman Travel Set.

The Viarco website
Buy ArtGraf Watercolour Graphite