Derwent Inktense ink wash pencils

Derwent Fortnight #9: Inktense

These pencils first appeared in 2005 or so, close to when Derwent invented the Graphitints. They are well named. Inktense are intense -- the color is very strong, much more like using colored inks than watercolor. They're weird and unique because the color can't reactivate once washed.

They only wash once, unless they weren't completely activated the first time. That can happen on heavy applications especially if you're not using much water. Lay them down by touching the tip with a wet brush and you've got a strong color that will not lift or move when you glaze other colors over it.

Derwent Inktense are my favorite underpainting pencils, whether I'm using pastels, colored pencils or anything else that I want a strong, vibrant underpainting for. It took some time to get used to the strong color. Less is more, and if it dries quickly you can't always correct blossoms or overpaint to get a smooth effect. This makes using Derwent Inktense wet an exciting, risky endeavor compared to using the AquaTone or Watercolour Pencils.

The results are well worth it though. Inktense create drama in almost anything I do with them. I started with a 24 color set that I passed on to a friend when I bought the full range of 72. You're seeing it in a Global Classic leather case because as soon as I opened the first tin and tried them dry, I knew these pencils ought to be pampered.

They're soft and strong when used dry. Their texture came pretty close to Prismacolors, which makes them a good choice for a dry colored pencil as well. Just be careful about spraying or splashing water near your dry piece, because that will activate them and create bright spots of wet texture. The colors are good and bright when dry too, so you can get some lovely traditional colored pencils drawings with Derwent Inktense.

Lightfastness varies. Check the Derwent Homepage for exact lightfastness on specific colors. Most of the greens, blues and browns are lightfast but there's a gap in reds and violets so choose the nearest to lightfast for anything that's going to be framed and hung. Earth tone warms may be a better choice than the bright reds, or treat the painting as fugitive and protect it with museum glass.

Derwent Inktense are available in open stock and sets of 6, 12, 24, 36 and 72. 24 color sets include the Derwent Outliner, I'm not sure if the 12 color set has an Outliner. This is a tremendously useful waxy graphite pencil that's completely nonsoluble. It's soft, somewhere in the B range of softness for graphite pencils and will not dissolve in even the wettest washes.

If you've tried using normal No. 2 graphite pencils or other graphite pencils for accenting a waterbased wash, you've found that some of the graphite drifts out of the lines to tint the colors. This can get seriously annoying. So the Outliner is the perfect sketch pencil under any form of water media. You can get the Outliner separately in open stock.

Certain colors like Chinese Ink and other blacks in Derwent Inktense are very good for doing traditional sumi-e style painting. Just scribble some on a porcelain plate with the pencil, add a little water to mix it to different values of ink.

Be sure to keep brushes wet and rinse them clean immediately when painting with liquefied Inktense or washing over an Inktense drawing. If you let it dry on the brush, it will stain the brush. I use The Masters' Brush Cleaner and Conditioner to wash my brushes and condition them after using Inktense, since that will get out the stains on nylon and sable brushes well even if they've soaked in. Stains don't necessarily ruin the brush, but it gets annoying when the hairs turn some weird combination of purple and brown.

Derwent has recently created a Steampunk Manga Kit that includes 12 Inktense pencils, a brush, a spiral bound A4 sketchbook and a CD with a 20-step lesson in drawing three great steampunk characters by leading Manga artist Hayden Scott-Baron(Dock). A couple of previous Manga collections also featured Inktense pencils.

The reason for this is that Inktense are a perfect coloring medium for any type of comics art. The colors are strong and with practice you can get fully saturated areas of pure flat wash colors easily by doing a smooth tonal layer and washing it. The Outliner provides clean graphite outlines that don't move when washed, although you could also do your lines for manga or comics art with any non-watersoluble ink pen. Or even do them with a dip pen and an Inktense wash, just mix some shavings in a palette cup with water and dip to draw your lines.

While not all comics artists like a manga style, the manga sets would be good to familiarize yourself with the medium and practice for using them on a Western comics style. The processes are very similar - pencil a good drawing, then ink and color it. Color or inking can go first, depends on which works better for you.

I've got a graphic novel project that I'm planning to script this April and will definitely be using Inktense for coloring its final pages, should I get good enough at comics art to do the story justice. The strong colors, ease of applying a watersoluble pencil and the way I can glaze over previous layers without reactivating them make them my choice for that style of art.

And for anything where I want very strong wash effects and don't care about lifting to lighten. You can still blot and lift while it's wet, but once it's down it's permanent. That is so great if I want to say, do some blue detailed foliage effects in dry brush and then wash an earth yellow over all of it to get different varieties of green. Inktense are a lot of fun. Try them in a small set and give yourself a chance to find out how strong and dramatic a wash medium can get.

Below is a tropical fish that I drew and painted in Derwent Inktense. All of it is washed, but some linear elements are strong and I only washed over them lightly. The background was done entirely by touching the points of pencils with a Derwent waterbrush and painting.


Tropical Fish
6" x 7"
Derwent Inktense used wet
Derwent spiral bound watercolor book 90lb watercolor paper with a wove texture.
Photo reference by AlainJ on WetCanvas.com for March 5-7 2010 Weekend Drawing Event.

Derwent Graphitints

Derwent Fortnight #8: Graphitint pencils

Derwent Graphitint tinted graphite pencils are another Derwent innovation. They're sketch and wash pencils with a 4B softness. These fat 10mm round pencils with 4mm cores are very rich and soft, perfect for sketching. They have a touch of color used dry but when washed, the color becomes more intense.

Even washed, the colors are still softer and muted compared to watercolor pencils. But they have a unique silvery sheen from the graphite that gives an eerie quality to any painting done with them. Available in sets of 6, 12 or 24, they have been an important part of my sketching arsenal since 2005 when I first bought mine.

There is only one comparable product, it's Australian. Mont Marte, an Australian company with a wide range of student and some artist grade products, came out with Earth Tones pencils in a range of 12. I know of nothing else anywhere that's like these and I prefer the Derwent Graphitint for their greater softness.

One discovery I made with these the first time I used them is that if I draw a spooky subject, it will gain immense power from that silvery graphite sheen. It'll look spookier done in Graphitints than anything else. That eerie quality lends itself to mystical or nature subjects too.

The white pencil has no graphite in it, but everything else does. It's just as soft as the darker ones, so when you're sketching on dark or tinted grounds this makes a good white sketch and wash pencil. Accents sketched over other colors come up well too, it's reasonably opaque and a good lightener.

Combining dry and wet techniques in the same piece can give a lovely contrast, since the washed areas have stronger color. Some artists prefer not to use intense, saturated color and enjoy a more muted palette for sketching.

Derwent Graphitints have an enormous value range in most colors. They blend well and handle like the softest sketching pencils used dry, but the hint of color allows the artist to use aerial recession, use complements for intensity and all the other color tricks without losing that sense of it being a sketch. Any of them would make good monochrome colors, but I prefer the blues since I've got a soft spot for blue monochrome drawings.

Not all the colors are lightfast. Derwent's home page lists the lightfastness by Blue Wool scale for each of the colors in the set. Choose accordingly depending on whether you're doing a serious drawing or painting to frame and exhibit or filling your sketchbook with field drawings and quick color notes from life.

Lightfastness isn't a major issue for sketchbook work. I realized that some time ago and organize my pencils by whether to keep them to the sketchbook or use them for paintings to frame.

Anything that's kept in a closed sketchbook with opaque covers and layers of other drawings protecting it has a good chance of lasting for years even with a fugitive pigment. I understood this when I looked at some medieval books of hours and the brilliant colors in their illustrations, when the same colors in paintings had faded and discolored till they were sometimes absent.

Graphitints shine both for serious pencil drawing to give subtle color variations and for sketchbook use. The 4B softness invites gestures, quick sketching, smudging with a stump, tortillon or finger. Brighter washes can add emphasis where you want them or they can be used for eerie, muted paintings in a watercolor journal or painting.

Port, Juniper, Aubergine, Dark Indigo and Storm are the sketchbook-only colors that rate lower than 6 on the Blue Wool scale. My favorite blue, Ocean Blue, has a rating of 7 which is between "lightfast" and "best lightfastness."

The tin is heavy, sturdy, well made and fits the pencils nicely. They don't all roll to the bottom if it's turned on its side and the lid snaps on well. I'd put a rubber band around it if sticking it in a backpack or messenger bag.

Despite their softness, I've had no trouble with internal breakage on any of my Derwent Graphitints. As with all fine art pencils, I use a sharp fresh pencil sharpener blade when sharpening them. Use the wide hole on a two-hole sharpener or a General's All-Art sharpener for them, or an electric sharpener that handles wide pencils.

While at first I thought these were fun special effects pencils, I started using them more and more. Since I bought the set, a good third to half of my sketches and value drawings are done with Graphitints because I love their softness, hint of color and smooth laydown. They erase exactly like 4B graphite. They shade like 4B graphite. They're top quality 4B graphite sketch and wash pencils that also have a color range, and that becomes irresistible when I'm doing value sketches.

Below is an example drawing I did on hot press watercolor paper. I used three techniques -- washed the sky very heavily over a smooth tonal layer to dissolve to a smooth wash, then washed lightly over stronger marks on the row of bare trees and the pine at the bottom. I let that dry and finished with the almost silhouetted large tree to show how the contrast of textures works so well in a sketch.


Cloudy Day
4" x 6"
Derwent Graphitint pencils
Hot press 140lb Lanaquarelle watercolor paper.