Graphite

Graphite is a metallic-grey crystalline form of carbon and one of the most common materials for writing and drawing. It is most often used as a pencil, in which a thin graphite core is encased in wood, though graphite powder and compressed sticks also serve artists as a medium in their own right. The softness or hardness of the lead is graded with letters (from H for hard to B for soft), yielding anything from pale silvery lines to deep velvety blacks. The material blends easily, lifts with an eraser and lends itself to fine hatching and tonal modelling. The modern graphite pencil emerged in the late eighteenth century, when Nicolas-Jacques Conté devised a way of mixing powdered graphite with clay and firing the rods, allowing hardness to be controlled. Since then graphite has been the principal tool of preparatory drawing, sketching and academic study, including in Ukrainian art schools. It serves both rapid notations and finished easel drawings. Its versatility, availability and precision have made graphite indispensable to artists, architects and designers.