Silverpoint

Fusion: the abbey in morning air

Corot's three divisions of light: a landscape divided into foreground with the darkest darks and strongest contrast, a midground of halftones, and a background of pale, close valuesSKY · 1FAR · 2 to 3MID · 4 to 6NEAR · 6 to 9FAR: narrow, pale, softMID: medium rangeNEAR: full range, sharpestEach zone has its own quality of light. The far zone never borrows a dark from the near zone.
FigureThe three divisions of light
CapstoneLine + Mass

Fusion: the abbey in morning air

A Gothic ruin drawn with the draughtsman's accuracy, standing inside Corot's three divisions

Make your own drawing, from your own reference, that unites the Line half and the Mass half: constructed architecture inside atmospheric landscape.

Difficulty
Time
about 3 h
You draw with
2H, HB, 2B, 4B, 6B, black pencil
The three divisions of lightTwo-point perspectiveConstructing a pointed archThe ruin's silhouetteMasonry coursingBuilding a tree from massesAerial perspectiveThe framing deviceFocal hierarchyGrouping valuesFigures for scale

Why this one

  • Unit 7 of the program: Capstone.
  • A landscape drawing you would frame: a building that is structurally true, standing in air that recedes, with one place the eye goes.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Grafwood 2H, HB, 2B, 4B, 6B 2H, HB for layout and line; 2B, 4B, 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 too small for the capstone: use the largest sheet you own, or two facing pages.
In general, this study asks for
  • Drawing pad (a large sheet if you have one)
  • 2H, HB, 2B, 4B, 6B, black pencil
  • Kneaded and precision erasers
  • Stump
  • Viewfinder
  • Your own photo of a ruin, old church, castle or stone bridge in a landscape, in morning or evening light

Watch first

All videos →

Broad charcoal masses and lifted lights; the closest thing on YouTube to a late Corot being made.

YouTube
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.How to draw a moody charcoal landscapeMad Charcoal · Value grouping and a dark foreground frame, in charcoal.

The plan

6 stages · ~185 min
  1. 1

    Design (thirty minutes)

    36 min

    Viewfinder: format and horizon. Three thumbnails, three values, grouped. Choose. Decide the three divisions: which zone the building sits in (usually mid), what is in front of it (a dark near zone, maybe a framing tree), what is behind (pale distance). Decide the focal point: nearly always where the building's lit stone meets its darkest void, or the skyline against the sky. Decide the light, draw the arrow.

    Corot's three divisions of light: a landscape divided into foreground with the darkest darks and strongest contrast, a midground of halftones, and a background of pale, close valuesSKY · 1FAR · 2 to 3MID · 4 to 6NEAR · 6 to 9FAR: narrow, pale, softMID: medium rangeNEAR: full range, sharpestEach zone has its own quality of light. The far zone never borrows a dark from the near zone.
    FigureThe building lives in one zone and obeys its range.
    Checklist0 / 1
  2. 2

    Structure, the Line half (fifty minutes)

    36 min

    Eye level. Envelope the building. Two-point slopes sighted. Bays divided. Arches constructed in their foreshortened openings. Skyline as negative shapes. Mouldings banded. Nothing shaded. This is the Cotman in you.

    A Castle in Normandy, Cotman, c. 1800–1842
    Cleveland Museum of Art

    Cotman, A Castle in Normandy, c. 1800–1842. graphite.

    Cotman, A Castle in Normandy: the structural standard for your building.

    The Cleveland Museum of Art · Dudley P. Allen Fund

    Checklist0 / 1
  3. 3

    Mass, the Corot half (sixty minutes)

    36 min

    Now the whole sheet as masses, side of the pencil, from the back forward: sky, distance (pale, soft, lost edges), the building's planes as flat values inside the mid zone's range, the near ground and any framing tree as the dark zone with the full range. Trees as clumps. Water as a mirror if there is water. Keep every zone in its range. The building is tonal now, not linear; its construction lines are underneath, holding it true.

    Environs of Rome, Corot, 1866
    Cleveland Museum of Art

    Corot, Environs of Rome, 1866. etching.

    Corot, Environs of Rome: the atmospheric standard for your air.

    The Cleveland Museum of Art · Gift of Frederick Keppel and Co., Inc., The Frederick Keppel Memorial

    Checklist0 / 1
  4. 4

    Line again, where it counts (thirty minutes)

    36 min

    Return to the building with the sharp HB and the broken line, but only at the focal point and the near edges: the lit arris of a buttress, the courses near the main opening, the voids, the underside of the cornice with the black pencil. Suggested masonry. A figure or two for scale, heads on the eye level. Edge texture on the near tree only. Everything else stays mass.

    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 together, once.
    Checklist0 / 1
  5. 5

    Audit (ten minutes)

    36 min

    Squint. Three zones? Darkest dark and lightest light touching at the focal point? Every form with a lost edge? Shadows all at the arrow's angle? Fix what fails. Sign small. Date. Box. Then take the Day One baseline out of the box and lay it beside this. That is the course.

    Checklist0 / 1
  6. 6

    Self-check

    5 min

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

    Checklist0 / 5

What it should look like

  • A landscape drawing you would frame: a building that is structurally true, standing in air that recedes, with one place the eye goes.

Where it goes wrong

  • The building rendered in full detail while the landscape stayed loose. Architecture is where the hours went. Soften the building's far edges and off-focal passages until it sits in its zone.
  • The landscape loose and the building stiff. Two drawings on one sheet. Lay a unifying tone across the building's shadow planes with the side of the pencil; let the construction show through 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 ~180 min

Status

How did it go?

Up nextThe souvenir, and the review of the box