Silverpoint

Edinburgh Castle from West Princes Street Gardens

Edinburgh Castle from West Princes Street Gardens, with the Ross Fountain, Forrest, c. 1908 to 1934
edinphoto.org.uk

Forrest, Edinburgh Castle from West Princes Street Gardens, with the Ross Fountain, c. 1908 to 1934. etching.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

edinphoto.org.uk · Scan via edinphoto.org.uk (Peter Stubbs). The etching is in the public domain (artist d. 1943).

Master studyMassThe Castle and the Canongate · c. 1908 to 1934

Edinburgh Castle from West Princes Street Gardens

A castle as a silhouette, with bare branches for a frame

The Castle on its rock against a pale sky, the Ross Fountain dark in the gardens below, and bare winter branches framing the top of the plate. Forrest's most Corot-like image: a silhouette problem, a dark frame, and almost no architectural detail. It is the natural bridge study between the two masters, and the only Forrest plate to do in soft pencil or charcoal.

Difficulty
Time
about 2 h
You draw with
2B, 4B, 6B graphite or charcoal, charcoal pencil for the branches
Negative shapesThe framing deviceNotan: two, three, four valuesBranch logicGrouping values

Why this one

  • Architecture as pure silhouette: the Castle reads from its skyline alone.
  • Corot's framing device in an Edinburgh plate: bare branches instead of foliage.
  • A dark-against-light notan with the fountain as a second dark.

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. 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
  • charcoal pencil

Watch first

All videos →

Two- and three-value notan, the exact exercise the Mass studies start with.

YouTube
How to draw a moody charcoal landscapeMad Charcoal · Value grouping and a dark foreground frame, in charcoal.How to draw with charcoal pencils: landscape sketchingThe Virtual Instructor · Charcoal pencil for the branch zig-zag and the darkest accents.

The plan

4 stages · ~105 min
  1. 1

    Notan

    10 min

    Two-value thumbnail: dark Castle, frame and ground; light sky. Then three with the mid rock.

    The same landscape reduced to two values, three values and four values, showing that the design is readable at two and complete at four2 VALUESThe design. If thisfails, nothing saves it.3 VALUESCorot's working number.4 VALUESFinished. More steps addpolish, not strength.Notan: the arrangement of light and dark, Japanese for "light-dark".Squint until the scene collapses to three flat shapes. Draw those first.Every lesson in the Mass unit starts here.A drawing with a good two-value design and bad details beats one with perfect details and no design.
    FigureThe design at two values.
    Checklist0 / 1
  2. 2

    The skyline

    30 min

    Draw the sky shape above the Castle, slowly, as a negative shape. Then fill the Castle and rock as one dark mass with the side of the pencil.

    Checklist0 / 2
  3. 3

    Frame and fountain

    50 min

    Branches with the charcoal pencil: from the trunk outward, thinning and forking, closing the corners. The fountain as a dark vertical silhouette. Ground dark.

    Corot's branch logic: a trunk that tapers, branches that change direction at every fork in a zig-zag, and limbs that disappear into the foliage clumps instead of ending in airWRONG · LOLLIPOP, ENDS IN AIRsame width top to bottom, straight limbsRIGHT · TAPERS, ZIG-ZAGS, DIVES INchangesdirection atevery forkvanishes into the massWork from the ground UP, the way the tree grew. Each fork: thinner, and a newdirection.Corot drew the branches zig-zagging upward and disappearing into the leaves. Not one of them ends in open air.
    FigureTaper, change direction, thin.
    Checklist0 / 2
  4. 4

    Audit

    15 min

    Squint. Does it read as the Castle with no detail at all? If you added a window, lift it. Box.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • Edinburgh Castle recognisable from its shape alone, framed by winter branches.

Where it goes wrong

  • Windows on the Castle. You know they are there. Lift them. The silhouette is the castle.

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 nextAbbotsford

Before this, ideally

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