Silverpoint

Old College Wynd, Edinburgh

Old College Wynd, Edinburgh, Forrest, exh. 1908 to 1934
William Shannon Fine Art

Forrest, Old College Wynd, Edinburgh, exh. 1908 to 1934. etching, signed and titled in pencil.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

William Shannon Fine Art · Scan courtesy William Shannon Fine Art (originalscottishart.com). The etching is in the public domain (artist d. 1943).

Master studyLineThe Edinburgh closes · c. 1908 to 1934

Old College Wynd, Edinburgh

A close in one-point perspective

Old College Wynd ran from the Cowgate up to the Old College of the University, one of the steepest and oldest lanes in the city; most of it was swept away when Chambers Street was cut in the 1870s. Forrest's plate looks up the wynd between tall rubble tenements with crow-stepped gables, figures on the cobbles, and light at the top. It is a one-point perspective problem with a high eye level, weathered masonry, and the broken line throughout. The first Forrest copy, and the model for every close after it.

Difficulty
Time
about 3 h
You draw with
H, HB and 2B graphite with sharp long points, fine pen optional
One-point perspectiveEye levelThe broken lineMasonry coursingFigures for scaleTone from line

Why this one

  • One-point perspective in a real place with a real slope, which is harder than a flat street.
  • Masonry suggested with broken courses and tone, never a drawn net.
  • The light at the far end is the design: a dark frame of walls around a bright gap.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Grafwood H, HB, 2B H, HB for layout and line; 2B for the darks. Long points from the Blackwing on everything up to B.
  2. 2Grafwood H for the lay-in; a fine pen if you have bought one, else a needle-pointed Grafwood F the pen studies are about the broken line, not the ink.
  3. 3Kneaded eraser and the Mono Zero press-and-lift corrections only; the Mono Zero for a single sharp light.
  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
  • Drawing pad or smooth cartridge
  • 2H and H with long points
  • HB for accents
  • Kneaded eraser
  • Sandpaper block

Watch first

All videos →

A street in one point from a blank page. The Old College Wynd set-up.

YouTube
Architectural pencil drawing tutorialMinty Sainsbury · Structure first, then tone, on a real stone building. The method of the Architecture studies in a modern hand.How Rembrandt made his prints: a demonstrationChristie's · Filmed at the Rembrandt House. The clearest view of drawing with a needle through ground, which is why etched line looks the way it does.In the studio with graphite pencil artist Minty SainsburyArtfully Crafted · A living architectural pencil draughtsman at work. The closest modern analogue to the Forrest side of this course.

The plan

5 stages · ~180 min
  1. 1

    Find the eye level and the point

    15 min

    Hold a pencil level across the plate and slide it until the sills below it rise toward the centre and the lintels above it fall. That is the eye level. Mark the vanishing point where the two walls' lines meet. Draw the eye-level line faintly across your sheet.

    One-point perspective of a narrow lane: all receding edges converge to a single vanishing point on the eye-level line, while verticals stay vertical and horizontals stay horizontalVPeye levelUse it when you look straight down a street, a nave, a wynd. Verticals stay plumb.Cross-lines stay level.Forrest's Old College Wynd, Meryon's Paris streets, every cathedral nave: one point.
    FigureEverything receding aims at one point on the eye level.
    Checklist0 / 2
  2. 2

    The two walls

    30 min

    Near verticals of each wall, plumb. Their tops and bottoms to the vanishing point. The slope of the cobbles is a second pair of lines rising to the same point.

    Checklist0 / 2
  3. 3

    Openings and gables by division

    40 min

    Windows and doors in receding rows: divide the near edge, connect to the point, and place each opening on the convergence. The crow-steps as short horizontals climbing the gable.

    Dividing a receding wall into equal bays with the diagonal method: a centre line is drawn to the vanishing point, and each new bay is found where a diagonal through the previous bay's midpoint crosses the far edgeDraw bay 1 by eye. Find its centre with an X. Run a line from the top of bay 1through the centre of its far edge: where it hits the base is bay 2's far edge.Equal in the world means shrinking on the page. Never measure receding bays with a ruler.
    FigureReceding rows shrink; construct them.
    Checklist0 / 2
  4. 4

    Broken line and counted tone

    70 min

    Go over the structure with the broken line: lift the pencil every inch, let it wobble. Courses as broken horizontals. Then hatch: one layer on the shadow wall, two under the gables and in the openings, three in the deepest pend. The far gap stays paper.

    The same old stone wall drawn with ruler-straight continuous lines, which looks like new concrete, and with Prout's broken wiry line, which looks like weathered stoneCONTINUOUS · READS AS NEWBROKEN · READS AS OLDLift the pencil mid-line. Let the line wobble, thicken, vanish and return. Suggesttwo stones per course, not twelve.Prout taught a generation that a broken line draws age. It is the most imitated trick in British architecturaldrawing.
    FigureBroken reads as old.
    Checklist0 / 3
  5. 5

    Figures and audit

    25 min

    Three figures: dots on the eye level, strokes to the feet. Squint: dark frame, light gap? Box.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • A steep lane between two old walls that visibly converge to a bright gap, with figures that give it a width.

Where it goes wrong

  • Vanishing point off the eye level. Guessed. It is on the line where sills turn to lintels. Re-find it.
  • Every stone drawn. Thoroughness. Courses only, broken; stones at corners and openings; tone in the middle.

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

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