Silverpoint

Tower of the Church of Haute Allemagne

Tower of the Church of Haute Allemagne near Caen, Cotman, 1822
Cleveland Museum of Art

Cotman, Tower of the Church of Haute Allemagne near Caen, 1822. etching.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Cleveland Museum of Art · Gift of William C. Keough

Master studyLine

Tower of the Church of Haute Allemagne

A cube, a pyramid, round arches, forty stones

1822, etching, from the Architectural Antiquities of Normandy: a Romanesque tower near Caen, lit from the upper left, with round-headed belfry openings and a pyramidal roof. A cube with a pyramid on it, under one light, with hundreds of stones implied and perhaps forty drawn.

Difficulty
Time
about 2.5 h
You draw with
2H, H, HB, 2B graphite
The round archLight on formMasonry coursingTone from lineRoof planes and slates

Why this one

  • Light on a cube and a pyramid, on a real building.
  • Round arches constructed; masonry suggested; tone counted.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Grafwood 2H, H, HB, 2B 2H, 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 →

Structure first, then tone, on a real stone building. The method of the Architecture studies in a modern hand.

YouTube
Cotman in Normandy: curator's lectureDulwich Picture Gallery · Timothy Wilcox on the Normandy tours and the Architectural Antiquities etchings. The architectural half of this course, explained by its curator.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 · ~150 min
  1. 1

    Envelope and planes

    20 min

    Envelope. Two faces and the roof. Light from the upper left: assign values.

    Checklist0 / 1
  2. 2

    Arches

    30 min

    Each belfry opening: springing line, centre, semicircle. Three joints radiating.

    Checklist0 / 1
  3. 3

    Courses and tone

    80 min

    Courses broken; stones at corners and openings; count your stones and stop under fifty. Hatch to the plane numbers.

    Checklist0 / 2
  4. 4

    Audit

    20 min

    Squint: a lit cube with a dark roof? Box.

    Checklist0 / 1

What it should look like

  • A tower that is obviously stone with almost no stones drawn.

Where it goes wrong

  • The net of stones. Thoroughness. Erase the middle. Keep the edges.

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 nextTracery

Before this, ideally

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