Description
A cool neutral medium blue-grey, the colour of pale charcoal. The lead in a ‘lead pencil’ is actually graphite, a mineral form of carbon. Lead had been used since antiquity to write with, and when graphite was discovered it was assumed to be a form of lead until a Swedish chemist discovered that the lead used in pencils was in fact carbon. It was named ‘graphite’ after the Ancient Greek ‘graphe’ meaning writing.