HAS ANYONE HAD AN INKTENSE EXPERIENCE?

So... after my relentless probing (well, a Tweet or three, and a query or two on FizzBok) it seemed that nobody (well, nobody in my - admittedly limited - social circle at least) has yet had an Inktense experience...

Perhaps I ought to explain...?

I recently found out about these "new" (well, to me, at least) drawing implements, and have been thinking of getting a set and trying them out. After all, I used to quite like drawing with inks, and the idea of a "solid" ink that might act a little like a pencil seemed rather intriguing to an old lapsed scribbler like myself.

I did seriously consider popping into the Pencil Museum in Keswick recently, just to buy a set, but sanity prevailed and, whilst I remained on the lookout for another Art Shop in the area, I wasn't lucky enough to find one, otherwise I might already have treated myself to a holiday gift which I would have either proved myself horrifically inept at handling, or just left in its bag to gather dust like every other one of my bight, spontaneous inspired purchases.

Since then, of course, I've found that I could just, like everything else nowadays, buy them online, but that does rather remove the option of the Art Shop experience which was, once upon a long ago, actually something that I did sort of quite enjoy.

Rather than just splurge the thirty-odd quid, however, (because they're not the cheapest of investments - but then art materials seldom are...) I thought that I might ask around amongst my "artistic" contacts to see whether they'd tried using them, although, as with a lot of things that I try and do via Social Networking, my questions went all but ignored, leaving me to believe that this shiny new idea for a scribblin' medium might not yet have caught on.

Either that or - as I have often suspected - I really have got to the point in my miserable, wretched little life where nothing that I say or do matters to anyone at all, which seems fair enough, actually, considering how little interest I generally show from my side of this two-way street.

Anyway, in a last-ditch attempt to get some kind of response, I'll ask again what I asked in those other places and hope - probably in vain - that somebody, somewhere has some sort of insight...

Meanwhile... Have any of you lovely artistic types tried drawing with Derwent's Inktense Watersoluble Ink Blocks yet...? I'm trying to decide whether to give them a whirl, so some actual "real world" feedback would be nice if you can offer it... 

(I'm kind of assuming that they'll be a little bit like pastels, only more "inky")