Landscape (The Large Tree)
Corot, Landscape (The Large Tree), c. 1865–70. charcoal with stumping, erasing, and wet brushwork on light brown wove paper.
Pins mark where to look before you draw.
The Cleveland Museum of Art · Bequest of Muriel Butkin
Landscape (The Large Tree)
One dark mass, the lights lifted out
About 1865 to 1870: a single enormous tree against a pale sky on light brown paper, drawn in charcoal with stumping, erasing and wet brushwork (the museum's own description). The whole canopy is one mass; the lights were lifted out of it, not left; the grain of the paper carries the air. The purest Mass study in the catalogue and the one to repeat most often.
- Difficulty
- Time
- about 1.5 h
- You draw with
- willow charcoal, charcoal pencil, kneaded eraser, stump
Why this one
- It is the late Corot method in one sheet: side of the stick, stump, eraser.
- Its design is a squint: it barely changes in the 3-value view.
- Short enough to do three times in a sitting.
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 →Broad charcoal masses and lifted lights; the closest thing on YouTube to a late Corot being made.
YouTube
Subtractive drawing: symmetry and value in charcoalNathan Orosco · Laying a charcoal ground and lifting the lights out, the late-Corot method.
Loose charcoal landscape drawingPaul O'Neill · Permission to be loose. Watch the side-of-the-stick strokes.
Ville d'Avray, Entrance to the Wood: Corot at the Scottish National GalleryNL Cultural · A single late Corot looked at slowly; watch for the three divisions of light and the lost edges.
Landscape drawing with charcoalThe Virtual Instructor · Three recorded lessons condensed; methodical and slow.The plan
4 stages · ~70 min- 1
Lay the mass
15 minBreak a stick to two inches. On its side, the whole dark mass in one go, lightly first, then deeper at the core. Ground. Sky left as paper.
Checklist0 / 2 - 2
Soften, lift, accent
25 minStump the edge where the tree's shadow meets the ground until it is lost. Lift the lit clump tops and the sky gap with the kneaded eraser. Charcoal pencil: trunk and two or three branches zig-zagging up into the mass.
FigureHard against the sky, lost into the ground. Checklist0 / 3 - 3
Again, from memory
25 minClose the image. Draw it again in ten minutes from memory. Compare for one minute. The second is yours.
FigureLook, turn, draw, compare. Checklist0 / 1 - 4
Fix and box
5 minFix both outdoors. Date. Box.
Checklist0 / 1
What it should look like
- A charcoal mass with a lit top, a dark core, a lost edge at the base and lifted lights inside it.
Where it goes wrong
- Everything blended to one grey. The finger went everywhere. Stump only the lost edge and the core. Lift the lights.
- Compressed charcoal from the start. It does not lift. Willow only.
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
Related studies
Master studyCorot · The late charcoals
Bent Tree by the Water
Three divisions of light, a cow, and a leaning trunk
2h
Master studyCorot · Cliché-verre: drawing on glass
Group of Trees (cliché-verre)
A clump in white line
1h- Foundation
Corot · Unit 3
Charcoal: The Large Tree, and the souvenir
A master copy in Corot's own late medium, then a drawing from memory
1.5h