Obscure Art Supplies Tested: General's Magic Black Eraser and Golden Crackle Paste

Introduction

Some art supplies earn their popularity, and some sit quietly on the shelf for reasons that are not entirely fair. We went looking for the second kind: lesser-known products with unclear purposes, tested hands-on to see whether obscurity is deserved or just bad luck. Two of the most interesting finds are the General’s Magic Black Eraser, designed specifically for charcoal, graphite, and pastel chalk, and Golden’s Crackle Paste, a thick white medium that cracks your paint as it dries.

General’s Magic Black Eraser

Charcoal pencils are beloved for their range and value, but anyone who works with them knows the frustration: erasing leaves a weird after mark no matter how careful you are. The Magic Black Eraser promises to fix that, and since it comes from General’s, the brand many charcoal artists already trust, expectations were naturally high.

In testing, it did perform better than a regular eraser. The erased lines came out noticeably sharper and cleaner, and it feels almost identical to a standard eraser in the hand, just slightly firmer. However, that stubborn after mark charcoal leaves behind is still there, which is a letdown given how confident the packaging appears. It does work, just not as dramatically as advertised, and it costs more than an everyday eraser. On a ten-point scale it lands around a five.

Golden Crackle Paste

This one is genuinely strange. Golden’s Crackle Paste is an opaque white medium that, as the name suggests, cracks as it dries. It looks like marshmallow fluff straight out of the tub, applies thick and even, and you can dilute it with paint up to ten percent to tint it. The honest first reaction is confusion: why would anyone want their paint to crack? The most obvious use is adding dramatic texture to a painting background.

Applied thickly and left to dry, it delivered convincingly. Within roughly a day and a half it had produced an astonishing network of cracks, and interestingly, the application thickness changes the result: thin layers produce fine hairline cracks while thick layers create larger, more dramatic fissures. Once cured it dries hard as rock, ready to be painted over directly.

Overall Buying Advice

The takeaways here are simple. If you work with charcoal regularly and want cleaner corrections, the Magic Black Eraser is a modest upgrade over a standard eraser, but temper your expectations about eliminating after marks entirely. The Crackle Paste is the more exciting buy: it works exactly as described, produces organic texture that is nearly impossible to fake, and rewards experimentation. Just apply it thick, be patient with drying times, and know that you cannot fully control where the cracks form.

Conclusion

Obscurity is not always deserved. The Magic Black Eraser is a mixed bag with some real value for charcoal artists, while the Crackle Paste proves that some of the strangest supplies on the shelf turn out to be genuine gems.