February Sketchbox - Water Soluble GRAPHITE!!!!!

 Another month, another Sketchbox!!! I must admit, I've been playing around with this box of supplies for over a week now and I'm just HAVING SO MUCH FUN!  More on this later!  

Let's start with swatches, what's in the box, and my thoughts on each item in the box:  

Supplies: 

• Princeton Heritage Brush - Round #6 
• This is a beautiful paintbrush.  I enjoyed using it very much!  Valued at $14, I would have settled for something a little less expensive if it meant getting an eraser in this box. 

• Derwent Graphitint Half Pans - Dark Indigo and Juniper
• These. Are. Amazing!  I have seen people use these online before, but I was NOT prepared for how awesome they are!  I really want the whole set now!  The colors were beautiful and granulated so nicely.  They of course are the quality I expect from Derwent.  These erased a bit, but not completely. 

• Derwent Graphitint Pencils - Ivy and Chestnut
• These were also pretty darn awesome!  I loved the colors and they dissolved quite nicely when using water on them.  These erased a bit, but not completely.  

• Spectrum Noir Colortint Pencil - Cafe Au Lait
• This was a nice pencil as well!  I didn't love it as much as the Graphitint pencils, but it was still a nice, dissolving pencil and it was great to have two different browns to create nice contrast.  This pencil *did* have a more clean erase than any of the Graphitint products, which was great.  

• ArtGraph Drawing Graphite Putty
• I was terrified of this package when I saw it.  I waited DAYS to open it.  When I opened it, I used a tiny scoop to take a VERY small amount out into my palette.  As soon as I put the paintbrush to it I was IN LOVE!  This stuff is literally liquid graphite.  I loved being able to use graphite like paint.  But THEN the best part - YOU CAN ERASE IT!  That's right!  It takes a little more to erase than dry pencil, which is perfect because you can draw on top of it and do a light erase without messing up the under layer, but you can also erase it to create highlights!!!!!  WHAT!?!?!  This is the star of the box, and I'm so excited to use it in the future too! One small thing I'd wished was that the plastic bag had a zip top instead of a tear open top so that I could easily keep it sealed.  But this stuff was AMAZING!  

• Cretacolor Watercolor Graphite Set, 6 pc
• Finally, these were decent!  I LOVED the two graphite pencils, the blue and the green.  They were high quality.  These pencils dissolved decently well and they erased pretty well too.  BUT, the red was weak, and was almost the same color as the juniper Graphitint so it didn't really get used much in my piece.  And the white, the white was absolutely useless.  It didn't layer over anything, it didn't write over any of the other graphite, and I didn't use it at all.  I even tried to scribble a bunch of it out and pick it up with a paintbrush to go on the top of the other graphite, and it did... nothing.  I'd much have preferred a 4 piece set here and a swap out for those two pencils for an opaque white medium.  

Quick Notes: 

• We didn't get paper this month.  I'm totally fine with that because the value of the rest of the box was great!  Also - Sketchbox has sent plenty of wet media paper in recent boxes, so everyone should have something to put their art on/in.  
• I definitely benefited from having the Caran D'Ache Palette Aquarelle.  (Palette pictured below.) This is a palette with a smooth side and a rough side, designed to scribble out pencils and pick them up with a wet brush.  It is easily the best $11 I've ever spent on a palette.  I'd HIGHLY recommend it if you ever use watercolor pencils!  
• I used the TINIEST bit of graphite putty!  I have a picture of the palette I used for that so you can see that a little really does go a long way with that stuff!  

Caran D'Ache Palette Aquarelle and my Palette with the Graphite Putty

Box Value: Sketchbox values this box at $52.93 and I have to say it's definitely worth my money!  I will use 90% of what's in this box over and over again for a long time to come.  The *only* thing I would say is that the Creatacolor red and white weren't very useful, and I would have traded them out for a nice eraser and a white opaque medium that actually layers over the graphite.  

That being said...  

This box was AWESOME.  This is exactly what an art subscription should be and should provide.  I would *never* play with graphite on my own accord, but give me graphite the works like watercolor and BAM - I'm pricing out Derwent Graphitint everything online!  And that graphite putty is one of the coolest things I have ever gotten in an art box.  GREAT JOB Sketchbox!  

What did I draw? I knew *immediately* when I saw how the graphite putty worked that I had to draw a statue!  And so of COURSE I drew Hylia from Skyward Sword!  I knew right away that the indigo Graphitint would look amazing as a dark sky.  I also used the pencils and half pans to create a cobblestone path.  I used both green and brown pencils to create the trees, that turned out whimsical just like the trees from Skyward Sword.  I used a combination of wet and dry graphite for Hylia herself.  I'm so very pleased with how this piece turned out!  

Have you ever played with water soluble graphite?  What would you make with this Sketchbox?  Let me know in the comments below!