Silverpoint

Souvenir of Ostia

Souvenir of Ostia, Corot, 1855
Art Institute of Chicago

Corot, Souvenir of Ostia, 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

Master studyLineCliché-verre: drawing on glass · 1853 to 1874

Souvenir of Ostia

Your first negative drawing

1855: a memory of the coast near Rome scratched into a blackened glass plate with a needle. Every mark Corot made was a light line in a dark field that printed as a dark line on white paper. The hand is quick and the lines wander. Copy it on a scratchboard and you will feel what he felt: no pressure, no tone, only line, and no way to erase.

In pencilOn a black scratchboard, every stroke is white and permanent. In graphite, lay a flat 4B tone and draw with the precision eraser; then photograph it and invert on the phone to see the print.

Difficulty
Time
about 1 h
You draw with
scratchboard and stylus, or 4B tone and a precision eraser
Value by spacingTexture lives at the edgeBuilding a tree from masses

Why this one

  • Negative drawing breaks the habit of outlining and makes you think in marks.
  • The cliché-verre line is Corot at his most unguarded.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 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.
  2. 2Kneaded eraser (warm it) and the clean Mono Zero press-and-lift corrections only; the Mono Zero for a single sharp light.
  3. 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
Printmaking process: intaglioMinneapolis Institute of Art · Four minutes that make every etching in this catalogue legible: ground, needle, acid, ink, wipe, press.

The plan

3 stages · ~60 min
  1. 1

    Watch the plate being made

    10 min

    Watch the INHA film (first video) to see a real glass plate and print; the images carry it without French.

    Checklist0 / 1
  2. 2

    Scratch it

    40 min

    Copy the design in white-on-black strokes. No outlines around masses: describe foliage by looping marks, ground by direction. Stop at thirty minutes.

    Checklist0 / 2
  3. 3

    Invert and compare

    10 min

    Photograph your board and invert it on the phone (or look at it in a mirror in your mind). Compare with the print. Note the difference between what you scratched and what it printed as.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • A white-line drawing that, inverted, looks like a loose etching.

Where it goes wrong

  • Outlining the tree and filling it. Positive habit. Start in the middle of the mass with marks, not at its edge with a line.

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 ~60 min

Status

How did it go?

Up nextGroup of Trees (cliché-verre)

Related studies