Wounded Eurydice
Corot, Wounded Eurydice, 1868–70. Oil on canvas.
Pins mark where to look before you draw.
The Art Institute of Chicago · Henry Field Memorial Collection
Wounded Eurydice
A seated figure as a light shape in a wood
1868 to 1870: Eurydice seated in a dark wood, bending to the wound on her foot, her pale drapery and skin the one light mass. A mythology painted like a Souvenir. As a charcoal study it is the lifted-figure lesson at its largest.
In pencilCharcoal subtractive study: the figure as one lifted light shape, the wood as the dark it emerges from.
- Difficulty
- Time
- about 2 h
- You draw with
- willow charcoal, charcoal pencil, kneaded eraser
Why this one
- The figure as a single light mass with a few internal planes.
- The pose (the bend) is carried by the mass's silhouette.
From your kit
The whole kit →- 1Willow 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.
- 2Pitt Matt 14B, knife-sharpened stands in for the charcoal pencil: trunk, branch zig-zag, the one accent.
- 3Kneaded eraser (warm it) and the clean Mono Zero lift the lights out of the mass; the Mono Zero for sky holes and lit edges.
- 4Alpha 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 cheap newsprint
- Willow charcoal, medium
- Charcoal pencil
- Kneaded eraser
- Stump
- Workable fixative
Watch first
All videos →Laying a charcoal ground and lifting the lights out, the late-Corot method.
YouTube
The plan
3 stages · ~95 min- 1
Silhouette
15 minThumbnail the figure as one light shape against dark. Get the fold of the pose.
Checklist0 / 1 - 2
Tone and lift
60 minTone the sheet. Lift the figure's silhouette. Then lift two or three planes within it (shoulder, thigh, drapery). Lose the lower edge into the ground.
Checklist0 / 2 - 3
Glimpse, fix, box
20 minLift the glimpse of light behind her head. Fix. Box.
Checklist0 / 1
What it should look like
- A pale bending shape in a dark wood that is unmistakably a seated figure.
Where it goes wrong
- Drawing anatomy. It is a nude. It is a light shape. Three planes inside it at most.
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
