Artgraf Graphite Putty is compressed water-soluble graphite you mould with your fingers — shape it broad for sweeping tonal areas, roll it fine for controlled marks, or dissolve it in water for fluid graphite washes with a characteristic silver shimmer when dry. Made by Viarco in Portugal since 1907, it is a genuinely unusual drawing material that suits tonal portraiture, expressive landscape work, mixed media, and any artist interested in what graphite can do beyond a pencil. £12.75 at Craft and Canvas, Hebden Bridge.

Inktense is not a watercolour pencil. It uses water-soluble ink pigments rather than watercolour — the colours intensify rather than lighten when water is added, and once fully activated and dried the marks are permanent and cannot be lifted. This makes layering with Inktense quite different from layering with watercolour, and opens up applications — including fabric painting — that watercolour pencils cannot achieve. In this complete guide we cover the Inktense Pencils (tin of 12, £23.99) and Blocks (tin of 12, £31.99), how to use both, the grating technique unique to the blocks, surfaces from watercolour paper to fabric, and how to combine Inktense with other media.

Posca pens contain water-based acrylic paint — opaque, vibrant, and permanent on porous surfaces — in a marker format that works across an extraordinary range of surfaces from paper and canvas to rock, wood, glass, ceramic, plastic, and fabric. In this complete guide we cover the full range we stock at Craft and Canvas: every nib size from the ultra-fine PC-1MR at £4.99 through the broad PC-17K chisel at £9.49, the standard, fluorescent, metallic, and glitter finishes, how to prime and use the markers correctly, how layering and blending work, what surfaces suit which size, and which pens to start with depending on what you want to make.