Silverpoint

The Two Oaks, Fontainebleau

The Two Oaks, Fontainebleau, Bléry, 1842
Art Institute of Chicago

Bléry, The Two Oaks, Fontainebleau, 1842. Etching, roulette, and drypoint on ivory wove chine collé on ivory wove paper.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Art Institute of Chicago · Gift of David Becker

Master studyLine + Mass

The Two Oaks, Fontainebleau

Two trees drawn leaf-mass by leaf-mass, with the foreground as careful as the canopy

An 1842 etching with roulette and drypoint: two oaks in the forest, foliage built from thousands of short strokes, the ground plants in the foreground drawn as carefully as the trees. Bléry taught Meryon, and you can see where Meryon's patience came from.

In pencilAn etched line is a drawn line. Copy it with hard grades and long points: tone from the spacing and direction of lines, cross-hatching only in the darkest third, no smudging anywhere.

Difficulty
Time
about 2.5 h
You draw with
H, HB, 2B graphite
Building a tree from massesBranch logicTexture lives at the edgeThe depth stackSix families of mark

Why this one

  • Foliage as clumps of short strokes, each clump lit on one side.
  • Two trunks whose relationship is the composition.
  • A foreground drawn, not scribbled.

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. 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 or smooth cartridge
  • 2H and H with long points
  • HB for accents
  • Kneaded eraser
  • Sandpaper block

Watch first

All videos →

Clump construction and sky holes.

YouTube
How to draw landscapes, trees, grass, foliage, water, using graphite pencilsSmoothie77 · Trees as masses in graphite, with the edge texture where it belongs.Printmaking process: intaglioMinneapolis Institute of Art · Four minutes that make every etching in this catalogue legible: ground, needle, acid, ink, wipe, press.

The plan

4 stages · ~125 min
  1. 1

    Trunks and their relationship

    15 min

    H: the two trunks, their lean, the gap between them, measured. The canopy's outer envelope as one shape.

    Comparative measurement: thumb on the pencil marks the tower's width, then that unit is counted up its heightPICK A UNIT, THEN COUNT IT1 unit = width2.8 units tallthumb slides on the pencil to markthe unitThe arm must be straight every time or the unit changes. Lock the elbow. Same eye.Nobody can judge "how tall". Everybody can count "how many of these".
    FigureMeasure the gap against a trunk's width.
    Checklist0 / 2
  2. 2

    Clumps

    50 min

    HB: the canopy broken into clumps, each a rounded mass with a lit top (sparse strokes) and a dark underside (dense strokes), the strokes following the curve of the clump. Sky holes between clumps.

    Four stages of a tree: the whole silhouette, then three to five big clumps, then a light side and shadow side on each clump, then leaf texture only along edges1 · SILHOUETTE2 · CLUMPS3 · LIGHT/SHADOW4 · EDGE MARKSEach clump is a sphere with its own light side, shadow side and cast shadow onto theclump below.Never draw a leaf. Draw masses that catch light, then let the edges say "leaves".
    FigureClumps inside the mass.
    Checklist0 / 3
  3. 3

    Foreground and darks

    50 min

    2B: the trunks' shadow sides and the darkest undersides. H, needle point: the foreground plants drawn individually, a leaf at a time, the one place on the sheet where detail is allowed to be complete.

    Depth built from overlapping planes: five layers from foreground to sky, each overlapping the one behind, each lighter and softer, with sizes shrinking5 · sky4 · far hills3 · middle2 · near field1 · foregroundOverlap is the strongest depth cue there is. Make each plane clearly in front of thenext, then grade the values.Five planes is a landscape. Two is a backdrop.
    FigureMost detail nearest.
    Checklist0 / 2
  4. 4

    Compare

    10 min

    Note, date, box.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • Two oaks that are individuals.
  • Foliage with light on it.
  • A foreground you could name the plants in.

Where it goes wrong

  • Uniform foliage texture. Strokes without a clump to belong to. Draw the clump's rounded mass first; the strokes live on its surface.

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 ~150 min

Status

How did it go?

Up nextEly Cathedral across the fen

Before this, ideally

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