Group of Trees (cliché-verre)
Corot, Group of Trees, 1858. cliché-verre.
Pins mark where to look before you draw.
The Cleveland Museum of Art · Seventy-fifth anniversary gift of the Broh-Kahns
Group of Trees (cliché-verre)
A clump in white line
1858: a group of trees against the sky, the clumps built from clusters of short strokes that thicken where the foliage is dense. A tree-mass lesson done in a medium that forbids tone, so density of mark has to carry the light.
- Difficulty
- Time
- about 1 h
- You draw with
- scratchboard and stylus, or 4B tone and a precision eraser
Why this one
- Density of mark as value: the same lesson as hatch spacing, in reverse.
- Fast and repeatable.
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
2 stages · ~55 min- 1
Clumps as crowds of marks
40 minDecide three or four clumps. Fill each with short strokes, crowding them where the clump is dense in the print and opening them toward the lit side.
Checklist0 / 1 - 2
Trunk and compare
15 minTrunk and branches as single confident strokes. Invert and compare.
Checklist0 / 1
What it should look like
- A tree whose light side is sparser marks and whose shadow side is a crowd.
Where it goes wrong
- Even density everywhere. No plan for light. Decide the lit side before the first scratch.
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
