Cretacolor AquaGraph Water-Soluble Graphite Pencils: A Compact Pocket Set Worth a Look

Introduction

Cretacolor has been putting out an eye-catching range of themed sketch sets lately, from a black-paper focused Wolf Box drawn set and a Passion Box filled with sepia, sanguine, white, and charcoal, to a tattoo sketching set co-created with Molotow that includes a carbon pencil, a non-photo blue pencil, a red brush marker, and two fineliners, plus an urban sketching tube set with watercolor pencils, a water brush, and markers. Even a metallic-focused Diamond Box is in the lineup. Whatever the reason behind the refresh, it is clear the Austrian brand is investing in sketch kits that feel genuinely useful rather than generic.

The set under review here is more modest: the Cretacolor AquaGraph pocket set, six water-soluble graphite pencils with a hint of color. Small on paper, but surprisingly capable, and a good introduction to what the brand does well.

Who This Product Is For

These pencils are aimed squarely at sketchers who like to work on the move. They are designed for on-the-go and plein air use, so if you carry a sketchbook and draw landscapes, botanicals, or urban scenes outside, this is the intended use case. Because they are graphite pencils with color added rather than true watercolor pencils, they also suit artists who want a monochrome-plus-a-touch-of-color look rather than full painting control.

Main Strengths

The pencil itself is well made. It has a round barrel at 7.3mm, which is pleasantly chunky and nicely weighted in hand, with a generous 3.8mm core. The grade across all six pencils is HB, and the barrel is finished in gunmetal grey with metallic silver print. The company name, the AquaGraph name, the color name, the HB grade, and a color number are all printed along the barrel, and each pencil is capped with a half-inch pigment identifier separated by a silver band. Made in Austria, the build feels considered.

Color-wise, the set contains blue, brown, teal, red, green, and a white pencil for highlights. The red is a rich, plummy red, the brown is deep and satisfying, and the teal sits somewhere between the blue and the green. One note of caution: the metallic silver print on the dark barrel can be a little difficult to read.

The most impressive trait is how completely the color dissolves. With cheaper water-soluble pencils, applying water over dry marks often leaves stubborn pencil strokes underneath the wash. Here, applying medium pressure and activating with a water brush, the entirety of the mark dissolves and turns into the paint it is supposed to be, with no leftover lines. The colors stay vibrant through the wash too, and the white pencil can be layered on top of a dried color for highlights.

In practical use, a quick lantern sketch in a sketchbook took around 45 minutes, with the teal and blue doing most of the work and the red and brown blended to create rust tones. For a small pocket set, the results were genuinely strong.

Things to Consider Before Buying

Six colors is a real limitation, and it is worth going in with the right expectations. These are graphite pencils with color in them, not watercolor pencils, so treat them as tinted graphite rather than a mini watercolor set. The white pencil is best thought of as a highlight tool rather than a mixing color. If you want to work on watercolor paper with fuller washes, that is a different product category entirely.

Buying Advice

If you sketch outdoors, this set slots neatly into a field kit alongside a sketchbook and a water brush. It also pairs well with a separate graphite block for backgrounds, which is a handy addition many plein air sketchers carry. Given Cretacolor’s other themed sets, such as the urban sketching tube set or the tattoo sketching set, there are bigger options if you want more media in one kit, but for a simple, portable introduction to water-soluble graphite, this six-pencil pocket tin is an easy recommendation.

Conclusion

The Cretacolor AquaGraph pocket set does one thing very well: vibrant, tinted graphite that dissolves completely into clean washes. The generous core, comfortable round barrel, and Austrian build quality back that up. It is a small set with real character, and a sign that Cretacolor’s current direction in sketch products is worth paying attention to.