Silverpoint

The Bell Tower of St. Nicolas-lez-Arras

The Bell Tower of St. Nicolas-lez-Arras, Corot, 1871
Art Institute of Chicago

Corot, The Bell Tower of St. Nicolas-lez-Arras, 1871. Transfer lithograph on tan China paper laid down on white wove paper.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Art Institute of Chicago · William McCallin McKee Memorial Endowment

Master studyMassTowers, forts and bell towers · 1826 to 1874

The Bell Tower of St. Nicolas-lez-Arras

A church spire as a thin vertical among trees

1871, from the lithograph set: tall trees on the left, a tiny bell tower on the horizon at the right, a figure in the field. The tower is almost nothing, and the picture is about it. A lesson in making a small vertical the focal point of a big soft drawing.

Difficulty
Time
about 1.5 h
You draw with
4B graphite on its side, charcoal pencil
Focal hierarchyBuilding a tree from massesFigures for scale

Why this one

  • A focal point made by contrast of kind: one thin straight vertical in a world of soft masses.
  • Part of the Towers body: Corot's architecture at its most minimal.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Grafwood 4B 4B for the darks, on their sides for mass. Long points from the Blackwing on everything up to B.
  2. 2Willow charcoal, or until it arrives Pitt Matt 12B and 14B on their sides the matt grades are the closest graphite gets to willow. Slip sheet under the hand.
  3. 3Pitt Matt 14B, knife-sharpened stands in for the charcoal pencil: trunk, branch zig-zag, the one accent.
  4. 4Kneaded eraser (warm it) and the clean Mono Zero lift the lights out of the mass; the Mono Zero for sky holes and lit edges.
  5. 5Alpha sketchbook 9 x 6 draw at the book's size and keep the proportions; date the page.
In general, this study asks for
  • Drawing pad, medium tooth
  • 2B, 4B, 6B with long points
  • Kneaded eraser
  • Precision eraser
  • Slip sheet

Watch first

All videos →

The drawing stage only: litho crayon on stone behaves like charcoal on toothed paper. That is why the Corot lithographs look like his fusains.

YouTube
Train your eyes to see valuesProko · Squinting, value scales and why beginners under-read darks.

The plan

3 stages · ~70 min
  1. 1

    Soft world

    45 min

    Trees and ground as soft side-strokes, no straight lines anywhere.

    Checklist0 / 1
  2. 2

    One vertical

    15 min

    Ghost the spire; land it once with the charcoal pencil. Then the figure.

    Checklist0 / 1
  3. 3

    Audit

    10 min

    Squint: does the eye go to the spire? Box.

    Checklist0 / 1

What it should look like

  • A soft landscape where one thin vertical owns the page.

Where it goes wrong

  • Detailing the tower. It is architecture. It is one line. Its power is contrast.

Log this session

Start the clock when you pick up the pencil. Stop it when you put it down. Log it. Every session counts toward the box.

00:00of ~90 min

Status

How did it go?

Up nextThe Isolated Fort

Before this, ideally

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