Silverpoint

A personal atelier · Landscape and Architecture in Graphite

Mass before line.
Line before detail.

Landscape and architecture in graphite, taught step by step for a complete beginner, after Corot and the architectural draughtsmen of Robert Smith Forrest's tradition. A visual for every technique. Real public-domain masterworks as references. You draw on paper; the screen teaches.

Open the program Meet the masters
49
sessions
59
techniques, each with a visual
148
masterworks, public domain
View of Marino (recto)

LINE

The young Corot, Rome, 1827

Sharp pencil, exact contour, empty paper.

Landscape (The Large Tree)

MASS

The old Corot, c. 1865 to 1870

Charcoal on its side, lifted lights, lost edges.

Corot's three divisions of light: a landscape divided into foreground with the darkest darks and strongest contrast, a midground of halftones, and a background of pale, close valuesSKY · 1FAR · 2 to 3MID · 4 to 6NEAR · 6 to 9FAR: narrow, pale, softMID: medium rangeNEAR: full range, sharpestEach zone has its own quality of light. The far zone never borrows a dark from the near zone.

Begin · Unit 0 · Session 1 of 49

How this program works

A session format, a box of drawings, and the twenty-minute rule

Done

0 / 49

Streak

0 days

The program

Eight units. Two halves of one craft, alternating, then fused.

About 44 hours of guided sessions over roughly 24 weeks at twenty minutes a day. Every session has a warm-up, numbered steps with a figure each, what it should look like, the failures every beginner makes, and an honest self-check.

  1. Unit 0Line + Mass

    Before the First Mark

    How the program works, the kit, a looking session with the masters, and a baseline drawing you will keep forever.

    4 sessions

  2. Unit 1Line + Mass

    Instrument Control

    Lines from the shoulder, line weight, pressure and layers, flat tone and gradients, the value scale, the six marks, and tone from spacing.

    7 sessions

  3. Unit 2Line + Mass

    Seeing

    Sighting angles, comparative measurement, plumb and level, negative shapes, envelope and masses, light on form.

    6 sessions

  4. Unit 3Mass

    Mass: the Corot Half

    Squint and notan, the three divisions of light, aerial perspective, daylight values, trees as masses, branches and sky holes, water and ground, charcoal and the souvenir.

    8 sessions

  5. Unit 4Line

    Line: the Draughtsman's Half

    Eye level and perspective, convergence and bays, the broken line, tone from line, the arch in perspective, and a master copy of the young Corot.

    7 sessions

  6. Unit 5Line

    Architecture

    The pointed arch, the round arch and the tower, tracery, mouldings and shadows, masonry, roofs and windows, the ruin, and the street with figures.

    8 sessions

  7. Unit 6Line + Mass

    Composition

    Format and horizon, thumbnails and grouping, focal hierarchy and edges, the framing device, the depth stack.

    5 sessions

  8. Unit 7Line + Mass

    Capstone

    Two full master copies, one in line and one in mass, then your own fusion: a Gothic ruin drawn true, standing inside Corot's air. Then the souvenir, and the review of the box.

    4 sessions

The masters

Two hands you named, and the lineage behind one of them.

All masters

How a session works

  1. 1

    Warm up

    Five minutes of the same drills every day: lines from the shoulder, pressure ramps, a flat square. The hand loosens.

  2. 2

    Follow the steps on paper

    Each step has a figure: a diagram of the technique or a master drawing with pins showing where to look. You draw by hand, beside the screen.

  3. 3

    Check honestly, log it, box it

    Three to five yes-or-no questions. Tick them truthfully and the session is recorded. Date the sheet and put it in the box.

Built to grow

Artists, mediums and styles are data, not code.

Adding a master is one profile file plus one harvest entry; the open-access museums supply the public-domain works. Techniques carry their own figures (58 diagrams so far). New courses slot into the same session format. Graphite is live; the rest is scaffolded.

  • Graphite

    live

    Pencil and charcoal. Landscape and architecture.

  • Charcoal

    planned

    Mass, atmosphere, the late Corot.

  • Pen and ink

    planned

    The etcher's discipline, in the hand.

  • Watercolour

    planned

    Cotman, Girtin, Prout: wash over structure.