Silverpoint

River with a Distant Tower

River with a Distant Tower, Corot, 1865
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Corot, River with a Distant Tower, 1865. Oil on canvas.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Bequest of Robert Graham Dun, 1900

Master studyMassSouvenirs: the late paintings · 1850 to 1875

River with a Distant Tower

Five planes to a tower

1865: dark trees on the left bank, figures and a boat, the river running back to a small tower on the far shore under a bright sky. A depth-stack picture: five overlapping planes carry the eye to a building that is almost nothing. Study it for depth and for how little a distant tower needs.

In pencilGraphite value study: five planes back to front, each lighter and softer; the tower as two marks.

Difficulty
Time
about 1.5 h
You draw with
2B, 4B, 6B graphite
The depth stackAerial perspectiveFocal hierarchyWater as a mirror

Why this one

  • Overlap plus value as depth, with a tower as the destination.
  • The distant tower is the Towers body of work at its most distant and most restrained.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Grafwood 2B, 4B, 6B 2B, 4B, 6B for the darks, on their sides for mass. Long points from the Blackwing on everything up to B.
  2. 2Pitt Matt 8B to 12B for the big tone passages: matt, so the dark mass reads as tone, not shine.
  3. 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.
  4. 4Alpha sketchbook 9 x 6 draw at the book's size and keep the proportions; date the page.
In general, this study asks for
  • Copier paper and drawing pad
  • 2B, 4B, 6B on their sides
  • Kneaded eraser
  • Viewfinder cards
  • Phone set to greyscale

Watch first

All videos →

Five hills, five values, in graphite.

YouTube
How to draw atmospheric perspective step by stepDraw Sessions · The same idea in a full landscape.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.

The plan

3 stages · ~80 min
  1. 1

    Count the planes

    10 min

    Find five: near bank and trees, water, far bank, tower and distant trees, sky. Thumbnail them as five values.

    Depth built from overlapping planes: five layers from foreground to sky, each overlapping the one behind, each lighter and softer, with sizes shrinking5 · sky4 · far hills3 · middle2 · near field1 · foregroundOverlap is the strongest depth cue there is. Make each plane clearly in front of thenext, then grade the values.Five planes is a landscape. Two is a backdrop.
    FigureFive planes is a landscape.
    Checklist0 / 1
  2. 2

    Back to front

    50 min

    Sky, then far shore with the tower as two halftone marks, then water with a soft reflection, then far bank, then near trees darkest and sharpest. Each plane clearly overlaps the one behind.

    Checklist0 / 3
  3. 3

    Figures and audit

    20 min

    Figures and boat as dark notes. Squint: does the eye travel to the tower? Box.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • A river you can travel down, ending at a tower you barely drew.

Where it goes wrong

  • The tower detailed. It is the destination. Two marks. Its power is in being small and far.

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 ~90 min

Status

How did it go?

Up nextLormes: Goat-Girl Sitting Beside a Stream

Before this, ideally

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