Silverpoint

Environs of Rome

Environs of Rome, Corot, 1866
Cleveland Museum of Art

Corot, Environs of Rome, 1866. etching.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Cleveland Museum of Art · Gift of Frederick Keppel and Co., Inc., The Frederick Keppel Memorial

Master studyLine + MassThe etchings · 1845 to 1869

Environs of Rome

The framing device, in a needle

1866. Two tall dark trees close the left and right, a dark foreground closes the bottom, and through the gap a pale hill town sits in the light. The clearest statement of Corot's favourite design: a dark frame and a light centre. Drawn in dense hatching, with the distance left almost untouched.

Difficulty
Time
about 3 h
You draw with
H, HB and 2B graphite
The framing deviceTone from lineThe three divisions of lightHard, soft and lost edges

Why this one

  • It is the framing device, the three divisions and tone-from-line in one plate.
  • The contrast between the near hatching (four layers) and the far (none) is the lesson.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Grafwood H, HB, 2B H, HB for layout and line; 2B for the darks. Long points from the Blackwing on everything up to B.
  2. 2Kneaded eraser and the 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
  • Drawing pad or smooth cartridge
  • 2H and H with long points
  • HB for accents
  • Kneaded eraser
  • Sandpaper block

Watch first

All videos →

Value grouping and a dark foreground frame, in charcoal.

YouTube
Printmaking process: intaglioMinneapolis Institute of Art · Four minutes that make every etching in this catalogue legible: ground, needle, acid, ink, wipe, press.Practice simplifying values with notan studiesProko · Two- and three-value notan, the exact exercise the Mass studies start with.

The plan

4 stages · ~135 min
  1. 1

    Notan: ring and hole

    10 min

    Two-value thumbnail: dark ring, light hole. Then three values with the town as the halftone.

    Checklist0 / 1
  2. 2

    Envelope and the hole's shape

    20 min

    Draw the shape of the light hole first, as a negative shape. Then the frame around it. The town inside the hole, by sky shapes.

    Corot's framing device: dark foreground trees on both sides and a dark ground close the picture around a small, pale, distant view in the centrethe picture inside the pictureDark frame, light centre. The eye is funnelled to the distance and stays there.Corot's "Environs of Rome" and his late souvenirs use this frame again and again.
    FigureDark frame, light centre.
    Checklist0 / 1
  3. 3

    Frame in layers

    90 min

    One layer of hatch over the whole frame. Second over the trunks and foreground. Third and fourth in the darkest trunk and under the foliage. Town: a few verticals, no hatch. Lose the frame's edge at the bottom.

    Checklist0 / 3
  4. 4

    Audit

    15 min

    Squint. Does the eye go to the town and stay? If the frame has detail, it competes; flatten it.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • A dark ring of trees around a pale town, where the ring is all hatch and the town is almost paper.

Where it goes wrong

  • The frame rendered with leaves. It is in front and looks important. It is a mass. Hatch it flat.

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 ~180 min

Status

How did it go?

Up nextSouvenir of Ostia

Before this, ideally

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