Silverpoint

Westminster Abbey from London As It Is

London As It Is: Westminster Abbey, Shotter Boys, 1842
Cleveland Museum of Art

Shotter Boys, London As It Is: Westminster Abbey, 1842. lithograph.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Cleveland Museum of Art · Gift of Mrs. Ralph Perkins in memory of Coburn Haskell

Master studyLine

Westminster Abbey from London As It Is

A great facade in side light, with the street to measure it

From the 1842 lithographs of London As It Is: the west towers of the abbey seen from the street, side-lit so one tower face is bright and the other in shadow, the Westminster Hospital at the left, carriages and figures on the pavement. Boys draws the elevation true and lets the light age the stone.

In pencilA lithograph is a crayon drawing printed; Boys's are tinted but the drawing underneath is line and flat tone. Copy the line with hard grades and lay the shadow sides as flat fields with the side of a 2B.

Difficulty
Time
about 3 h
You draw with
H, HB and 2B graphite
Two-point perspectivePlumb and levelCast shadows on buildingsLight on formFigures for scaleTracery from circles

Why this one

  • The straight-line counterpart to Prout: a true elevation, then light.
  • Side light as the device that makes a flat facade three-dimensional.
  • A street scale with figures and carriages in correct perspective.

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 →

The corner view, built slowly.

YouTube
How to draw a Gothic archehow · Two centres, two arcs, in ninety seconds.How to draw realistic textures with pencils: brick and stone wallAsif Rasheed Art · Stone and brick texture; use it for the near courses only and let tone do the rest.

The plan

4 stages · ~140 min
  1. 1

    Elevation and eye level

    20 min

    Eye level low across the sheet. The towers as two tall rectangles, plumb; the hospital block at the left converging to a point off the left edge.

    Two-point perspective of a building corner: the near vertical edge is tallest, each face recedes to its own vanishing point far off the page on the eye-level lineto VP left,off the pageto VP right,off the pagenearest edge: tallest, darkestUse it when you see a corner. The two VPs are usually FAR apart, often both off thepaper. That is normal.If both VPs fit on your page, your building will look like a toy seen through a fish-eye lens.
    FigureTwo points, both off the sheet.
    Checklist0 / 3
  2. 2

    Light and shadow planes

    40 min

    Name the light direction. Lay every shadow face as a flat field with the side of the 2B: tower shadow faces, the hospital's shaded side, the cast shadows on the pavement. Lit faces stay paper.

    A buttress under sunlight from the upper left casts a shadow onto the wall; the shadow's edge follows the buttress profile and steps where the wall plane changesshadow follows the buttressprofileand jogs at the string courseCast shadows are the cheapest way to show that a wall has depth and the sun has adirection. Keep them one consistent angle.If two shadows on one building disagree about where the sun is, the building collapses.
    FigureShadows fall one way.
    Checklist0 / 3
  3. 3

    Gothic detail where it counts

    60 min

    H, needle point: pinnacles, the great window's tracery as circles and arcs, the buttress lines. Draw detail on the lit faces only; the shadow faces keep their flat tone with a few marks.

    A two-light Gothic window built from geometry: the main pointed arch, a central mullion, two smaller pointed heads, and a circle in the spandrel that becomes a quatrefoilTWO-LIGHT WINDOW · CIRCLES AND ARCScircle in the spandrelbecomes a quatrefoilsub-arches: half the spanmullionTracery is geometry you can reconstruct, not lace you must copy. Find the circles.Cotman's Cley Church: every window head is a compass construction drawn freehand.
    FigureTracery from circles.
    Checklist0 / 3
  4. 4

    Figures and carriages, compare

    20 min

    2B: figures as shorthand with heads on the eye level, carriages as boxes. Compare. Note, date, box.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • Towers that stand because one face is lit and one is not.
  • Detail that lives in the light.
  • A street you could step into.

Where it goes wrong

  • Detail on the shadow face. You can see it in the print. Boys drew it faint. One value plus three marks.

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 nextHôtel de Ville, Louvain

Before this, ideally

Related studies