In the 24 set of Derwent Graphitint, 19 of them are rated 6 and above, which is an excellent ratio in my opinion. Derwent as a company are producing some of the most versatile products on the market at the minute, the Drawing and Graphitint ranges may not have a large number of colours in their sets, but the colours they do have will be difficult to find in other sets, making them a unique brand of pencils. The more water applied to each colour, the less lightfast it becomes - be careful around colours such as pinks and purples that have low lightfast numbers as these will fade far quicker than stronger colours. They don't offer the same silvery sheen as graphite pencils do and they feel heavier in application. This is more noticeable than in the pencils, where the dry pencil has a subtle shimmer but the wet areas of colour are a lot less metallic-looking.

I don't normally list the colours in my written reviews, mainly because I can review sets that have 120 colours in them. The colours are: port, juniper, aubergine, dark indigo, shadow, steel blue, ocean blue, slate green, green grey, meadow, ivy, sage, chestnut, russet, cool brown, cocoa, autumn brown, storm, warm grey, midnight black, mountain grey, cloud grey, cool grey and white.

I'm no watercolourist and have minimal knowledge on how best to work watercolour pencils so followed the same concept as I do with acrylics.

I decided to apply clean water to each colour individually to avoid over blending or bleeding and found the colours dried lighter than the application was applied. Be aware that this lightfast chart has been provided by Derwent for the lightfast qualities of the dry application and NOT mixed with water. A specially selected assortment of brushes for different painting techniques; each brush in this set has been developed to produce different marks, allowing the artist greater creative possibilities. Storm, Russet, Warm Grey, Slate Green, Chestnut, Cocoa, Port, Juniper, Meadow, Green Gray, Steel Blue, Sage, Cool Brown, Cloud Grey, Cool Grey, Midnight Black, Ocean Blue, Shadow, Mountain Grey, Dark Indigo, Aubergine, Autumn Brown, Ivy and White.With only 24 colours in the range, it is difficult to find the right one especially for this stunning Red-legged Honeycreeper as there is only the Ocean blue colour in the set that comes close to the blues on this bird and that was quite a muted tone. Lightfastness is a very important factor for all artists, including coloured pencil artists, Derwent seem to take this matter very seriously and have certainly done an excellent job with the Graphitint range. Graphitint has the same properties as the Derwent 4B Watersoluble Sketching pencil so it will appeal to artists looking to add a colourful dimension to their graphite drawings but retain all the familiar qualities of their favourite graphite pencil. It is perfect for taking out sketching allowing the artist to work dry in monochrome and to add water with a brush where colour emphasis is needed.

Graphitint will appeal to artists looking for something a little bit different but with all the familiar qualities of their favourite graphite pencils. If used dry they produce grey shadings with subdued hues but just add water and the colours become bolder and richer. As you can see from the swatch above, the colours dry can be viewed as similar, that is until you activate them with water. Although the range is small, as I have mentioned, all good things come in small packages, or in this version of the saying, all good things come in small quantity. I would certainly say that the Derwent Graphitint would be more beneficial for landscape artists or wildlife artists.Other colours were added to the edges of the wings creating a layering process of wet/dry applications until I got the right amount of detail and colour strength. Recently Derwent released a companion set of 12 more Inktense pan colours (with all new colours not included in the original set), a 24 colour Inktense pan set (which I believe contains all the same colours as the 24 block sets) and a 12 colour set of Graphitint pans. Protect your artwork with a UV fixative or frame your artwork using UV protection glass which can filter out up to 99. As far as I know, the Graphitint pans are made from the same material as the pencils, which, as I pointed out in my linked review at the start of this post, have significant lightfastness issues.