History of Graphite Pencil Painting Technique

Before discovering the graphite pencil, metal tips of gold, copper, zinc, silver, lead, and alloys such as lead and tin were used.

If one of these tips is passed over the paper with sufficient pressure, it will leave a trace made up of very fine metal particles. It was widely used in the manuscripts Depending on the metal, they produce a very delicate brown or light gray line of metallic reflections. The surface (paper or parchment) needed a special base made from pulverized bone, water, gum arabic and dyes. The metal tip is used by Van Eyck, Botticelli, Leonardo and Durero, among others. 

In this article, Jay Greig, a graphite pencil artist from Carson City, Nevada, will share some key points of the history of graphite pencil. Greig has won many awards for his drawings, which have been widely published, and have won many awards. Furthermore, Greig’s Drawings have been featured in several prestigious publications, including Western Horseman and American Quarter Hourse Journal, as well as numerous other articles and covers on various publications. Greig graduated from the University of Nevada and holds an Associate of Arts Degree with major in Fine Arts and minor in History of Art.

As Greig has pointed out, graphite was discovered in Bavaria around 1400. Around 1500, Borrowdale, Cumberland (Great Britain) discovered a very pure, carbon-rich graphite deposit. It has been said that a storm brought down an old oak tree and a dark substance was shown. The shepherds began to use this substance to mark their herds. It was thought that the new black substance has simillar properties with the lead and was called plumbago, (Latin for lead). At first the solid graphite was wrapped in sheepskin and was drawn directly with it. The first pencils were made in the mid-16th century. In the 18th century, wood cladding was invented by Italians Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti.

The skilled graphite draftsman, Greig, expert in graphite art history, shares the fact that this technique was popularized by Flemings and the Dutch, such as D. Teniers and Cuyp.

In 1795 the French Nicholas Conté, Napoleon's engineer, used a method to obtain high-strength artificial graphite rods from pulverized and impurity-free graphite. Greig specifies that it consists of mixing graphite, clay and water. The resulting stick-shaped paste is baked at a specific temperature and dipped in a wax bath. It is used by the French David, Ingres, Delacroix, Corot and Degas.

From Jay Greig's publications about history of graphite pencil art, we have learned that in 1812 the American William Monroe perfected the process of making artificial graphite.