The young Corot: contour and economy
Corot, View of Marino (recto), 1827. graphite.
The Cleveland Museum of Art · Gift of Robert Hays Gries
The young Corot: contour and economy
A master copy of View of Marino
Copy an Italian Corot in a hard pencil, placing every line exactly and leaving the paper alone.
- Difficulty
- Time
- about 1 h
- You draw with
- 2H and H with sharp long points
Why this one
- Unit 4 of the program: Line: the Draughtsman's Half.
- A pale, exact drawing with more empty paper than you were comfortable leaving, where every line is in the right place.
From your kit
The whole kit →- 1Grafwood 2H, H 2H, H for layout and line. Long points from the Blackwing on everything up to B.
- 2Kneaded eraser and the Mono Zero press-and-lift corrections only; the Mono Zero for a single sharp light.
- 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
- 2H and H with sharp long points
- Kneaded eraser
Watch first
All videos →Comparative measurement with a straight arm, demonstrated on a still life.
YouTube
The plan
5 stages · ~65 min- 1
Read it
15 minStudy View of Marino with the annotations. Measure it with your eye: the town sits in the upper right at about a third down; the foreground trees take the lower left; the middle is terrain described by five or six long contour lines and nothing else. Count the lines that make the town. It is fewer than you think.
Corot, View of Marino (recto), 1827. graphite.
Corot, View of Marino, 1827, graphite, 20 by 29 cm.
The Cleveland Museum of Art · Gift of Robert Hays Gries
Checklist0 / 1 - 2
Envelope at the same proportions
15 minDraw a rectangle in the sheet's proportion (about 7 by 10). Envelope the town, the tree group and the main terrain lines with the 2H, sighting the angles off the screen exactly as you would off a building. Measure the town's width against the sheet. Place everything before you draw anything.
Checklist0 / 1 - 3
Contour, exactly
15 minWith the H, place the town's lines one at a time, each ghosted and committed, light where Corot is light. Then the terrain lines. Then the trees' lobed contours. Keep the pressure so light that the lines are barely there. Resist shading. Where he leaves paper, leave paper. Forty minutes.
Checklist0 / 1 - 4
Compare and note
15 minSide by side. Where did you add? Beginners always add. Where did you darken? Erase back toward his lightness. Write on the sheet: what did he leave out that I wanted to put in?
Checklist0 / 1 - 5
Self-check
5 minTick each item honestly. If one is a no, the session is not finished; go back to that step.
Checklist0 / 4
What it should look like
- A pale, exact drawing with more empty paper than you were comfortable leaving, where every line is in the right place.
Where it goes wrong
- Shading crept in. Empty paper feels unfinished. Kneaded eraser. Lift it back out. The emptiness is the drawing.
- The town too big. It is the interesting part. Measure it against the sheet. It is small.
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?