Robert Oster Graphite is one of five of my favorite greys, leaning into deep purple and blues when touched with water.  I am on my third bottle.

Above, a wet circle is ringed with Graphite, and left to dry on its own.  Right, my FPR Himalayan with an ultra-flex nib filled with this lovely ink.

Remember that others review these inks just for writing;
I am also interested in how they are used for ink-painting!

Properties of Robert Oster’s Graphite:

This ink is well-behaved,
and does not feather on
any of the papers I normally use, even Post-its.  I consider it a medium ink, neither wet nor dry, and it evaporates quickly with a wet nib.  It doesn’t show color when sketching, but does move into colors when hit with water, below.  Water moves this ink easily with no resistance or ghosting; it is not water resistant.

The paper towel test shows many colors beneath the ink! Turquoise, greens, purple-red all move out from the graphite ink. Looking at watercolor comparisons, I offer Daniel Smith’s Imperial Purple, Phthalo Blue, and Cobalt Teal.  The pigments fall into in the following Munsell ranges: PV23, PB27/PV19, PB 15:3, PG36.

*For more info on the munsell system, go to this page.  

IMPERIAL PURPLE

PHTHALO 226

*Above, watercolors, from Daniel Smith and Sennelier.*

On watercolor paper, a sketch of pencils stacked…  For fun, actual graphite
was used for shadow on the side and the architectural markings below.

AAA Los Angeles, above, was drawn with a FPR Himalayan
with an ultra-flex nib in a Hahnemühle Nostalgie Sketchbook.
he lines were touched with water using a Pentel Aquash waterbrush.
The lines were added back in after the water moved the ink and dried!

I sketched this while waiting for Mitchell to come from picking up groceries at new Seasons with a FPR Himalayan with an ultra-flex nib in a Hahnemühle Nostalgie Sketchbook.  I  dipped the Pentel Aquash waterbrush onto my pen and picked up the inky grey.

RO is experimenting and testing lightfast properties…
MOST water soluble ink companies do not pay attention to these things because most artists who use ink are making prints of their work.

The non-toxic inks come in 50ml plastic bottles that are environmentally friendly, using recycled plastic.
They can be tippy, so I usually put them in a more solid container
to decant. All my pens fit easily into the bottle opening to fill.

I bought Robert Oster’s Graphite at Vanness.

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