Discovering Derwent Natural Graphite Bars

What if your favourite pencils could come in the form of a solid graphite bar? Ever thought about it? What new possibilities would open up to you! Derwent has thought about this and they brought out three splendid graphite bars in soft, medium and hard, in answer to this yearning. If you are not sure whether this is something you need to your stash of art products, then today's blog is for you. I put these bars to the test to see what they are capable of, and at the end, I do a quick sketch using only these three bars.

The Graphite Bars come packaged in sets of six, resulting in you getting two each of the soft, medium and hard bars.

The softer the bar is, the more of the graphite will be left on the paper, resulting in darker lines. That means that the soft bar is the darkest, and the hard bar is the lightest.

You can achieve a nice thick line if you draw the bar over the paper on the width of the point.

If you use the corner of the bar, you can achieve a very thin line.

Dragging the bar down on the full length of the bar, gives this very interesting wide column as a result.

It is also equally easy to draw long straight lines by turning the bar on its sharp edge and swiftly moving it in the direction you like the line to run. No more shaky and wobbly lines!

You can also get a very interesting shape by twisting the bar on its center axis.

This same shape changes dramatically if you dare to break the bar into smaller pieces. The fact that you get two of each bar in the pack, makes this a much more acceptable option, somehow.

I played around with a thick zigzag line.

Then I tried the same thing in a wavy line.

Then I used the length of my broken piece to make these interesting broken dashes.

Finally, I wanted to know how the bar would stand up to writing.

Very versatile, was the conclusion I reached.

I would probably never use the graphite bars on their own to produce drawings with, but would choose to combine them with other pencils, etc. However, I wondered if it would be possible and made this quick drawing with the hard bar.

I then used all three of the bars to fill in the shading and I have to be honest that this did not turn out too badly at all. What a wonderful addition to my drawing box!

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy the books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.

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Jy kan Kom Ons Kleur Tuinstories In hier koop.
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