The Gardens of Horace
Corot, The Gardens of Horace, 1855. Cliché-verre on ivory photographic paper.
Pins mark where to look before you draw.
The Art Institute of Chicago · Gift of the Print and Drawing Club
The Gardens of Horace
A woodland interior with a path of light
1855: tall trunks, a path of light running back into the wood, a small figure. The most finished of the early clichés-verre and a composition lesson: the light path is where the plate is scratched most, the dark wood is where it is scratched least.
- Difficulty
- Time
- about 1.5 h
- You draw with
- scratchboard and stylus, or 4B tone and a precision eraser
Why this one
- A focal path made purely of mark density.
- Trunks as negative shapes against the lit path.
From your kit
The whole kit →- 1Grafwood 4B laid flat, then the Mono Zero lay an even tone with the side, then draw the lights out with the eraser as if it were the stylus.
- 2Kneaded eraser (warm it) and the clean Mono Zero press-and-lift corrections only; the Mono Zero for a single sharp light.
- 3Alpha sketchbook 9 x 6 draw at the book's size and keep the proportions; date the page.
In general, this study asks for
- A scratchboard (black clay-coated) and stylus, or
- 4B graphite laid as a flat tone plus a Tombow Mono Zero eraser
Watch first
All videos →Curators handle Corot's actual glass plates and prints. French; the images carry it even without captions.
YouTube
The plan
3 stages · ~80 min- 1
Plan the light
10 minDecide where the path of light goes. That is where you will scratch most.
Checklist0 / 1 - 2
Scratch by plan
60 minDensest along the path, opening into the trees, nearly nothing at the dark edges. Trunks as unscratched verticals.
Checklist0 / 2 - 3
Compare
10 minInvert, compare, box.
Checklist0 / 1
What it should look like
- A wood with a bright path drawn entirely by how hard you worked where.
Where it goes wrong
- Even scratching. No plan. Mark the path on the board faintly first.
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.
Status
How did it go?
Before this, ideally
