Silverpoint

A Castle in Normandy

A Castle in Normandy, Cotman, c. 1800–1842
Cleveland Museum of Art

Cotman, A Castle in Normandy, c. 1800–1842. graphite.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Cleveland Museum of Art · Dudley P. Allen Fund

Master studyLine

A Castle in Normandy

A ruin's skyline drawn with more care than anything else

Graphite, 19 by 27 centimetres: a ruined keep seen at its corner, a round tower, a mound at left, birds overhead. The broken top edge is drawn with more attention than the rest of the sheet put together. Mixed voids (some sky, some wall), suggested coursing, parallel hatch on the shadow planes. The model ruin study.

Difficulty
Time
about 2.5 h
You draw with
H, HB, 2B graphite
The ruin's silhouetteTwo-point perspectiveNegative shapesMasonry coursingLight on form

Why this one

  • The ruin's skyline as the drawing's most important line.
  • Two-point faces on a ruin, with voids that differ.

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 →

A ruin blocked in from the envelope. Ink and wash, but the construction is identical in pencil.

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.

The plan

4 stages · ~150 min
  1. 1

    Envelope and skyline

    40 min

    Envelope at the sheet's proportion. Skyline as sky shapes, slowly.

    A ruined abbey wall read as silhouette: one big stable mass, an irregular broken skyline, dark window voids, and vegetation softening the lower edgebrokenskylinegrowthsky behindwall behindA ruin is one mass with its top bitten off. Some voids show sky, some show darkwall. Never all the same.Cotman's Normandy castle, Prout's Norham, Forrest's Dryburgh: the skyline does the storytelling.
    FigureThe skyline does the storytelling.
    Checklist0 / 1
  2. 2

    Planes and voids

    50 min

    Two faces, the round tower as a cylinder. Each void decided: sky or wall.

    Checklist0 / 1
  3. 3

    Coursing and tone

    50 min

    Courses broken; stones at edges and openings. Parallel hatch on the shadow planes.

    Checklist0 / 1
  4. 4

    Mound and audit

    10 min

    Mound as contour lines. Squint. Box.

    Checklist0 / 1

What it should look like

  • A ruin whose skyline tells the story and whose stone is implied.

Where it goes wrong

  • Every void the same dark. Not asking what is behind. Decide each: sky or wall.

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 nextThe street with figures

Before this, ideally

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