Experimenting with a new medium recently! This isn’t graphite, but pure silver!
Silverpoint (or metalpoint) is a drawing technique that predates pencils as a medium. It was used by Da Vinci and renaissance artists across Europe for drawing; a metal stylus, usually made of silver, leaves marks behind on a specially prepared, slightly abrasive surface. The drawings could then be tinted with pigments (like the chokecherries shown here) or highlighted with white to increase contrast and help the drawings pop.
You cannot achieve the same depth of value as you can with charcoal or graphite, nor does it erase well, so precision is the name of the game. Over time, these the silver in these drawings will tarnish to a warm brown, until they appear the same sepia tone as old renaissance drawings.
