Derivan Liquid Pencil

I was perusing online at Blick Art Materials several weeks ago (what else to do on a lazy Sunday morning, hehe), and I saw they had a new product listed under the ink category. It’s called ‘Derivan Liquid Pencil’. The product piqued my curiosity. ‘Liquid Pencil’? Isn’t that an oxymoron in itself? I googled it, read about the experience others had with this medium …. and in the end, by golly, I JUST HAD TO HAVE IT! As if I didn’t have enough art products to play with, hahaha!

Liquid pencil is essentially graphite in a water-based binder. It is available in two 50 ml formulas: permanent and rewettable. It comes in six tints: yellow, red, blue, sepia, grey 3 and grey 9. The permanent formula is exactly that …. once dry, the medium cannot be manipulated further. The rewettable formula, however, has more of a watercolor property. It can be lifted, reworked and erased.

The manufacturer, Matisse Derivan is an Australian company, so I thought I’d begin my search for an Australian art store that carry this product. I figured, Australian stores will have a better pricing since this is a local product for them. Shipping to Malaysia from Australia shouldn’t cost a bomb either because of the shorter distance (compared to the US).

A couple of weeks after placing my order (they didn’t have some of the colors I wanted in stock, so they had it backordered), I received my package. I bought four jars in red, blue, sepia and grey 9 … all in the rewettable formula.

Upon breaking the seal and opening the jar, I can already see the bits of graphite. I stirred it before use, as per the instructions, and found the texture to be runny EXCEPT for the red. Somehow, my red liquid pencil is goopy and was filled a little over the half way mark of the jar. Hmmm, weird …..

As usual, upon getting any new medium, I made a color chart out of it:

I proceeded to test the product. My findings:

• It dries to a matte finish.
• It dissolves easily when I go over it with a damp brush once dry.
• It preserves my brush strokes. I find it hard to lay down an even wash.
• It erases off when dry, provided I use a hard eraser (my electric eraser did a wonderful job at this). The color Grey 9 erases easily and better than the tinted ones.

Here are two little sketches I did in my Aquabee Super Deluxe sketchbook using the blue and red liquid pencils respectively:

Personally, I like the blue and sepia colors. The blue reminds me of cold steel, and the sepia has a nostalgic, vintage feel to it. Both colors complement each other very well too. Red is just an okay color for me. Grey 9 looks like your normal everyday graphite (except it goes on like paint, that is), and I see it useful for outlining and adding definition to sketches made with other liquid pencil colors.

I’ve since poured the liquid pencils into a small pillbox for easy access (and less mess). I blasted the liquid with a hairdryer to make them harden a little. You can see how thicker and goopier (if there is such a word) my red liquid pencil is compared to the rest (the first compartment from the left), since it cracked upon drying.

By the way, this pillbox will be another addition to my sketching kit, which I will use for making monochromatic sketches.

In the US, you can find the Derivan Liquid Pencil at Blick Art Materials. However, if your country is geographically nearer to Australia, you can get them where I bought mine, at ArtStore.

Tagged as: Derivan Liquid Pencil

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