Silverpoint

Focal hierarchy and edges

A landscape where the focal point, a tower, has the strongest contrast, the sharpest edges and the only fine detail, while everything else is softer and closer in valuehere only: 1 beside 9,sharpest edge, onlydetaileverywhere else: softer edges,narrower value range, no detailThe eye goes where contrast, sharpness and detail coincide. Allow that to happen inexactly one place.Spend your darkest dark and your whitest white together, once, on purpose.
FigureFocal hierarchy
FoundationLine + Mass

Focal hierarchy and edges

One place where everything coincides

Give a drawing exactly one focal point by concentrating contrast, sharpness and detail there and subordinating everything else.

Difficulty
Time
about 1 h
You draw with
HB, 2B, 6B
Focal hierarchyHard, soft and lost edgesGrouping values

Why this one

  • Unit 6 of the program: Composition.
  • A drawing where you can point to the focal point and where everything else is quieter than it.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Grafwood HB, 2B, 6B HB for layout and line; 2B, 6B for the darks. Long points from the Blackwing on everything up to B.
  2. 2Kneaded eraser and the Mono Zero press-and-lift corrections only; the Mono Zero for a single sharp light.
  3. 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
  • HB, 2B, 6B
  • Kneaded eraser
  • Last session's drawing, or a new subject

Watch first

All videos →

Squinting, value scales and why beginners under-read darks.

YouTube
Practice simplifying values with notan studiesProko · Two- and three-value notan, the exact exercise the Mass studies start with.How to simplify your light and shadow shapesDrawing Tutorials Online · Shadow shapes as flat masses first. Shown on a portrait, but the principle is identical for a tree or a tower.

The plan

4 stages · ~59 min
  1. 1

    Choose the point

    18 min

    Decide where the eye should go: a doorway, a tower top against sky, a trunk against the brightest distance. Off centre, on a third. Mark it with a faint cross.

    A landscape where the focal point, a tower, has the strongest contrast, the sharpest edges and the only fine detail, while everything else is softer and closer in valuehere only: 1 beside 9,sharpest edge, onlydetaileverywhere else: softer edges,narrower value range, no detailThe eye goes where contrast, sharpness and detail coincide. Allow that to happen inexactly one place.Spend your darkest dark and your whitest white together, once, on purpose.
    FigureContrast, sharpness and detail in one place.
    Checklist0 / 1
  2. 2

    Concentrate

    18 min

    At the cross: your 9 beside your 1, the sharpest edge in the drawing, and the only passage of real detail. Everywhere else: narrow the values toward the middle, soften edges with a pass of the side of the pencil, remove detail with the kneaded eraser. Yes, remove it.

    Checklist0 / 1
  3. 3

    Lose an edge on every form

    18 min

    Go round every form. Where its value matches its neighbour, let the edge go entirely. At least one lost edge per form. Then compare with the Meryon, where the cathedral's skyline has the sharpest edges and the quays dissolve.

    The Apse of Notre-Dame, Paris, Meryon, 1854
    Art Institute of Chicago

    Meryon, The Apse of Notre-Dame, Paris, 1854. Etching and drypoint ivory laid paper.

    Meryon, The Apse of Notre-Dame. Sharpest and darkest at the silhouette; everything else subordinate.

    The Art Institute of Chicago · Clarence Buckingham Collection

    Checklist0 / 1
  4. 4

    Self-check

    5 min

    Tick each item honestly. If one is a no, the session is not finished; go back to that step.

    Checklist0 / 3

What it should look like

  • A drawing where you can point to the focal point and where everything else is quieter than it.

Where it goes wrong

  • Two focal points. Could not choose. Soften one. Narrow its values.
  • Detail everywhere, because it was already drawn. Sunk cost. The eraser is a drawing tool. Use it.

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 ~60 min

Status

How did it go?

Up nextThe framing device