Silverpoint

The Isolated Fort

The Isolated Fort, Corot, 1874
Art Institute of Chicago

Corot, The Isolated Fort, 1874. Transfer lithograph printed in black on ivory China paper laid down on white wove paper.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Art Institute of Chicago · Print Department Purchase Fund

Master studyMassThe lithographs · 1871 to 1874

The Isolated Fort

Wind, a tree, a fort on the horizon

1874, the year before he died: a tree bent by wind on the right, two figures on a rise, and a fort as a low dark shape on the horizon at the left. Everything leans. The fort is six strokes. One of the last things Corot made, and as simple as the first Italian sheets.

Difficulty
Time
about 2 h
You draw with
4B and 6B graphite on their sides, charcoal pencil
Branch logicFigures for scaleGrouping valuesHard, soft and lost edges

Why this one

  • Movement drawn with direction of stroke.
  • A building reduced to a silhouette on a horizon, which is how Forrest's Castle also works.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Grafwood 4B, 6B 4B, 6B for the darks, on their sides for mass. Long points from the Blackwing on everything up to B.
  2. 2Willow 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.
  3. 3Pitt Matt 14B, knife-sharpened stands in for the charcoal pencil: trunk, branch zig-zag, the one accent.
  4. 4Kneaded eraser (warm it) and the clean Mono Zero lift the lights out of the mass; the Mono Zero for sky holes and lit edges.
  5. 5Alpha 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, medium tooth
  • 2B, 4B, 6B with long points
  • Kneaded eraser
  • Precision eraser
  • Slip sheet

Watch first

All videos →

The drawing stage only: litho crayon on stone behaves like charcoal on toothed paper. That is why the Corot lithographs look like his fusains.

YouTube
Loose charcoal landscape drawingPaul O'Neill · Permission to be loose. Watch the side-of-the-stick strokes.

The plan

3 stages · ~105 min
  1. 1

    The lean

    15 min

    Sight the lean of the trunk against plumb. Draw it as one stroke. Every later stroke follows that direction.

    Checklist0 / 1
  2. 2

    Tree, ground, fort

    70 min

    Foliage as side-strokes all leaning the same way. Ground in long leaning strokes. The fort last, as a dark silhouette on the horizon, no detail.

    Checklist0 / 2
  3. 3

    Figures and compare

    20 min

    Two leaning figures. Compare. Box.

    Checklist0 / 1

What it should look like

  • A drawing you can feel the wind in, with a fort you would never think to detail.

Where it goes wrong

  • Upright strokes in a windblown tree. Default hand direction. Turn the paper so the lean becomes your natural stroke.

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 ~120 min

Status

How did it go?

Up nextSouvenir of the Fortifications of Douai

Before this, ideally

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