Silverpoint

12 studies · about 25 hours · 5 weeks at 20 min a day

Detailed graphite

The hardest-looking pencil work in the catalogue, in the order that makes it possible: Bléry's plants, Ruskin's capital, Rousseau's oak, Bone's cathedral, and Menzel's sluice as the summit.
  1. 1
    Line weight: the same box drawn with uniform line and with weighted line, heavier on the shadow side and where forms touch the groundUNIFORM LINE (DEAD)WEIGHTED LINE (ALIVE)heaviest where it meets thegroundlighteston the littop edgeA line's weight tells the eye which edge is in light, which turns away, and what is heavy. Vary it on purpose.

    Foundation · Roberts

    Line weight

    The weighted box

  2. 2
    Light on a sphere and a cube from the upper left: highlight, light, halftone, core shadow, reflected light and cast shadow, labelledhighlightlighthalftone (the turn)core shadow (darkest on theform)reflected light (never aslight as the lit side)cast shadow (darkest at thecontact)top planelightestfront: halftoneside: shadowEvery building is cubes, every tree is spheres. Decide where the light is before the first mark.

    Foundation · Cotman

    Light on form

    A sphere and a cube under one lamp

  3. 3
    Plant Study

    Master study · Bléry

    Plant Study

    A foreground drawn for its own sake: leaves, stems, flower heads, in graphite

  4. 4
    Tree and Rocks in the Forest of Fontainebleau

    Master study · Bléry

    Tree and Rocks in the Forest of Fontainebleau

    A single oak in pencil: canopy as mass, trunk as structure, rock as ground

  5. 5
    Byzantine Column Capital

    Master study · Ruskin

    A Byzantine column capital

    One fragment, drawn until it is understood

  6. 6
    Fortresses in Tyrol, near Mals (recto); Castle in Lenzburg (verso)

    Master study · Ruskin

    Fortresses in the Tyrol

    A castle on a crag in pencil: the rock drawn as carefully as the wall

  7. 7
    Oak from Rocks

    Master study · Rousseau

    Oak from Rocks

    A tree portrait: every fork followed from root to twig

  8. 8
    The Two Oaks, Fontainebleau

    Master study · Bléry

    The Two Oaks, Fontainebleau

    Two trees drawn leaf-mass by leaf-mass, with the foreground as careful as the canopy

  9. 9
    Ely Cathedral

    Master study · Muirhead Bone

    Ely Cathedral across the fen

    A cathedral the size of a thumbnail, and a landscape that makes it enormous

  10. 10
    Liverpool Cathedral

    Master study · Muirhead Bone

    Liverpool Cathedral under scaffolding

    A cathedral being built, in pencil, with most of the sheet left bare

  11. 11
    The Choirstalls in the Mainz Cathedral

    Master study · Menzel

    The choirstalls in Mainz Cathedral

    A dark interior with one window of light, translated to graphite

  12. 12
    Sluice

    Master study · Menzel

    Sluice

    Timber in perspective, drawn with pressure as a tool