In my search for all things matte, I came across these and was quite excited about them. Graphite and charcoal are where I put *all* my points when I was levelling up my art skills as a kid/adolescent/young adult and I never liked the graphite shine. It’s because of that shine that I initially switched to charcoal, but charcoal has a different annoying feature in that it smears and gets on everything. Fixitif is one thing, but I’ve ruined many a sketch simply by closing my sketchbook. Graphite will smudge, oh will it ever, but it’s easier to work with on the fly and less delicate, in my experience. So, could these be the solution to all my woes?

Things I Noticed

• I used Legion Stonehenge paper first for this little sketch. I’ve been searching everywhere for whatever paper I was using in university that absolutely blew my mind. This isn’t it, but it is a lot nicer than Strathmore Drawing paper, which I had used almost exclusively for a few years. To compare, I redid the sketch on the drawing paper as well.

• I didn’t have the full set of these pencils, apparently. Just 2B-12B, missing HB and 14B. I’ve corrected this now, but for these drawings, I really only used 6B, 10B, and 12B. I always used Staedtler Mars pencils before, and 2B was usually what I started with, building up to never really go past 6B, maybe 8B on occasion, for pupils and nostrils and the like. With these, the 2B seems so much harder and less valuable to me. If you watch the video, there’s a point where everything shifts dramatically, and that’s because, off-camera, I tried out the 12B and realised it was key to getting what I wanted.
• About the 12B: at that level of softness, graphite practically becomes charcoal, but with shine. This 12B held a shockingly nice point, though, and sure, was way less shiny than I expected, but it is responsible for 100% of the shine in the finished piece.

Are These Pencils Matte?

They are not completely matte, they are not ‘dead-matte,’ they are not charcoal. But, yeah, they are way less shiny than other graphite pencils I’ve used. And darker! For comparison, I did this sketch *again* on Legion Stonehenge but with Caran d’Ache Grafwood. Here is the comparative shine:

It became very difficult to film the drawing with Grafwood because I wanted to hold the paper in an inconvenient filming position to avoid the glare. It’s funny, because I filmed many a graphite drawing back when I was mildly Youtube famous a long time ago, but never realised how annoying the glare was. I am going to blame the furniture. I used to loom over my works on a short table.

Anyway, if I want complete matte, I will return to charcoal, but yes, these surprised me enough that I’ll probably go for them more often than my Staedtlers.