Silverpoint

Figure library · 58 diagrams · page 6 of 10

Every diagram in the program

The teaching figures on their own, large, in order. Each one links to the technique it illustrates. Useful pinned beside the board when you only need the picture.
  1. A single foliage clump whose interior is flat tone and whose outer edge carries all the leaf texture, with a zoom showing the scribbled edge markszoom: broken, varied,pointing outwardThe eye reads texture at edges and assumes it continues inside. Give it the edge andnothing else.Interior texture flattens the form and kills the light. Trust the edge.

    Texture lives at the edge

    foliage-edge-texture

    Texture lives at the edge →
  2. Still water as a mirror: reflections drawn with vertical strokes, a half-step darker than what they reflect, and broken by a few horizontal ripple lineswater linesky: value 1sky's reflection: value 2 (darker)Everything reflects straight down from its base. Vertical strokes. Lights darker,darks lighter. Then break it with three horizontals.Corot's ponds are the sky laid flat, a half-step darker, with the grain of the paper left for sparkle.

    Water as a mirror

    water-mirror

    Water as a mirror →
  3. The ground plane graded from darker and textured near the viewer to lighter and smoother in the distance, with cast shadows anchoring objects to itdarker+ texturecast shadow glues it downNear ground: more texture, more contrast, darker. Far ground: a flat pale wash. Nocast shadow = floating.The ground is a plane that recedes, not a backdrop. Draw it going away.

    The receding ground

    ground-plane-gradient

    The receding ground →
  4. The souvenir method: look for three minutes, turn the back to the subject, draw from memory for ten, compare for one, repeatLOOK3 minSquint. Name the 3masses. Find thelightest and thedarkest.TURNBack to the subject.No peeking.DRAW10 minOnly what youremember. Massesfirst.COMPARE1 minTurn round. Say aloudwhat went wrong.Repeat three times. The third drawing is always the best, and it is yours.Corot titled his late landscapes Souvenir because they were drawn from memory.Memory keeps the masses and the mood and drops the clutter. That is what you want.The best filter for detail is forgetting it.

    The souvenir method

    souvenir-method

    The souvenir method →
  5. Eye level: a standing viewer, the horizon line at the height of their eye, with things above it showing their undersides and things below showing their topsEYE LEVEL = HORIZONabove eye level:you see its undersidebelow eye level:you see its topstraddles: no top, no undersideSit down and the horizon drops. Climb a hill and it rises. It is always exactly atyour eye.Draw the eye-level line first on every architectural page. Faintly. Everything hangs from it.

    Eye level

    eye-level-horizon

    Eye level →
  6. One-point perspective of a narrow lane: all receding edges converge to a single vanishing point on the eye-level line, while verticals stay vertical and horizontals stay horizontalVPeye levelUse it when you look straight down a street, a nave, a wynd. Verticals stay plumb.Cross-lines stay level.Forrest's Old College Wynd, Meryon's Paris streets, every cathedral nave: one point.

    One-point perspective

    one-point-perspective

    One-point perspective →