Silverpoint

Figure library · 58 diagrams · page 9 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 window drawn as a dark recess: the reveal shows depth, the glass reads as a dark value with one thin highlight, and the sill catches light and casts a small shadow belowWRONG · RECTANGLE AND CROSSRIGHT · HOLE IN A THICK WALLreveal: depthglass: dark, 8sill: paperits shadowGlass is dark because it shows the dark room behind it. Only one or two panes catchsky and go light.The thickness of the reveal is what makes a wall feel like stone and not cardboard.

    The window as a void

    window-as-void

    The window as a void →
  2. A ruined abbey wall read as silhouette: one big stable mass, an irregular broken skyline, dark window voids, and vegetation softening the lower edgebrokenskylinegrowthsky behindwall behindA ruin is one mass with its top bitten off. Some voids show sky, some show darkwall. Never all the same.Cotman's Normandy castle, Prout's Norham, Forrest's Dryburgh: the skyline does the storytelling.

    The ruin's silhouette

    ruin-silhouette

    The ruin's silhouette →
  3. The same doorway drawn without and with a small figure; the figure's head sits on the eye-level line, which fixes the scale of everythingNO FIGURE · ANY SIZEWITH A FIGURE · A CATHEDRAL DOOReye levelStanding on the same ground as you, every adult's head is on your eye level, near orfar. Only the feet move.Prout dropped two or three figures into every street. They are rulers, not people.

    Figures for scale

    figures-for-scale

    Figures for scale →
  4. A buttress under sunlight from the upper left casts a shadow onto the wall; the shadow's edge follows the buttress profile and steps where the wall plane changesshadow follows the buttressprofileand jogs at the string courseCast shadows are the cheapest way to show that a wall has depth and the sun has adirection. Keep them one consistent angle.If two shadows on one building disagree about where the sun is, the building collapses.

    Cast shadows on buildings

    cast-shadow-architecture

    Cast shadows on buildings →
  5. Three value thumbnails of the same scene, each about the size of a business card, exploring three different arrangements before committing to oneTHREE THUMBNAILS · 3 MIN EACH · VALUES ONLYA · tree left, farm rightB · tree right, framingC · two trees, farm centredB wins: biggest dark mass, clearest light shape, distance framedRules: no detail, no lines, three values, two inches wide, pick one and commit.A thumbnail that does not read at two inches will not read at twenty.Ten minutes of thumbnails saves two hours of a drawing that was never going to work.

    Thumbnails

    thumbnails

    Thumbnails →
  6. The same scene with values scattered like confetti, which reads as noise, next to values grouped into three big connected shapes, which reads as a pictureSCATTERED · CONFETTIGROUPED · THREE BIG SHAPESLink your darks into one shape. Link your lights into one shape. Let a mid valuehold them apart.Corot's trees, ground shadow and foreground are one dark. That is why his pictures feel calm.

    Grouping values

    value-grouping

    Grouping values →