The Cretacolor Marino range is a water-soluble artist pencil, which means it draws like a coloured pencil and then behaves like watercolour the moment a wet brush touches it. Each pencil is part of the Marino 5400 series from Brevillier's Cretacolor, and the boxes are printed "made in Austria" alongside a water-drop symbol marking the leads as aquarelle.

In practice you work in two stages. Lay the colour down dry, building it up exactly as you would with any coloured pencil, then pull a damp brush over the area to dissolve the pigment into a smooth wash. Hard edges soften, hatching disappears into flat tone, and the same pencil can give you a crisp dry line on one part of the page and a loose wash on another. Left dry, they simply work as ordinary coloured pencils.

Three set sizes are stocked. Twelve covers the primaries plus the core earth tones and is the practical size for travel or for testing whether watercolour pencils suit your work. Twenty-four fills in the secondary and mid-tones for general illustration. Thirty-six gives the closely-spaced shades that matter when you are blending skin, foliage or skies and do not want to mix every transition by hand.

Every set arrives in a hinged metal tin with an embossed Cretacolor lid, which keeps the slate-blue barrels in order and protects the leads. Safencia lists the Marino Aquarelle sets from Rs. 4,500 with Cash on Delivery across Pakistan, and WhatsApp confirms stock, your city and delivery charges before dispatch.

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