These are not pencils for writing memoirs or taking scientific notes. Made by Caran d’Ache, the graphite core is water soluble. Like watercolour paint, the graphite dissolves when wet, becoming another type of medium, while remaining graphite.
The pencils, in HB, B, and 3B, have the bar code attached to a removable plastic piece:
The pencil is exceptional in appearance, with a beautiful and simple gold imprint on a matte black background. An easy sharpening cedar pencil, it really has the feel of a quality art supply.
The brush icon indicates that this is a water soluble pencil:
The cap is glossy:
I am not an artist! But even as a backyard doodler, I can see that these pencils are both capable and fun. Going over a drawing with a fine brush dipped in water unleashes nuances and shading capabilities that would be challenging to achieve with regular pencils. Or at least for me they would be!
Maybe you have tried them, or a similar product?
I love water soluble graphite pencils! They are one of my favourite drawing media. I have the Caran d’Ache ones, and others from Derwent and Cretacolor. I also have some watersoluble graphite sticks from Lyra. I like that it’s a combination of a drawing and painting tool.
Caran D’Ache really makes quality products across their entire lines, and all their pencils and graphite leads that I have ever tried are superb. Like I often tell my students, as far as I am concerned everybody is an artist. You just have to allow yourself the opportunity to explore your own artistic path without inhibiting/sabotaging yourself when the initial results might not meet others definition of what art should be.
Thank you for the comments, and my aplogies for delays in moderation. I recently replaced “Akismet” with “Antispam Bee” as anti-spam software, and an occasional glitch occurs.
The water-soluble Technalo leads are excellent. I say leads because their “Museum” leadholder line comes with several 3.8 mm Technalo leads. Currently, these are all I am working with since the effects can be so rich. One of my favorite new techniques is to grind the pencil on a sharpening stone. A waterbrush can pick up the ground graphite and generate sumi-like effects.
I use a Stabilo 8046 ” Aquarellable”, which also works on glass, plastic and metal much like a “grease” pencil.
For a long time, my favorite drawing pencil was the Schwan All Stabilo 8008 – I never used it’s Aquarellable quality much, but it was very smooth graphite, and could mark on all surfaces. It doesn’t come in different lead grades (unless something has changed) and there’s no indication of a grade on the outside of the pencil, but it falls in the 4B-6B range. I highly recommend it for sketching if you only want to carry one pencil. I’ve also tried the above 8046 Black color pencil and some of the other all-surface water soluble color pencils that Stabilo makes. They are the softest color pencils that I have ever come across, unfortunately not in a very broad range of colors – I had to be very careful not to use too much pressure with them.
I used to have some Toison d’or water soluble pencils called Mondeluz. Beside its romantic name they are very comfortable. Isn’t that Toison d’or some koh-i-noor relative?
@Hynek – yes, Toison d’or is a brand name of the higher-quality Koh-i-noor products.