Silverpoint

Ruins of the Château of Crémieux

Ruins of the Château of Crémieux (Isère), Daubigny, 1850
Art Institute of Chicago

Daubigny, Ruins of the Château of Crémieux (Isère), 1850. Etching, roulette and aquatint on cream Japanese paper.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Art Institute of Chicago · The Charles Deering Collection

Master studyMass

Ruins of the Château of Crémieux

A dark landscape with a ruin on the ridge and the sky as the only light

An 1850 etching with roulette and aquatint: rocks in the foreground, a ruined castle along the ridge, a pale sky above a dark land. The aquatint makes it a tonal plate, and the lesson is a landscape built from two values with a ruin as the edge between them.

In pencilAquatint and roulette give this plate its grainy tone. Lay the land as a 4B field with the side of the lead, lift the lit rock tops and the ruin's lit face with the kneaded eraser, and keep the sky a pale even gradient.

Difficulty
Time
about 2 h
You draw with
2B, 4B, 6B graphite on their sides, kneaded eraser
Notan: two, three, four valuesThe ruin's silhouetteErasers as drawing toolsA smooth gradientHard, soft and lost edges

Why this one

  • A two-value landscape: dark land, pale sky, with the ruin on the join.
  • Rocks as masses with lit tops.
  • A ruin as silhouette against the only light.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Grafwood 2B, 4B, 6B 2B, 4B, 6B for the darks, on their sides for mass. Long points from the Blackwing on everything up to B.
  2. 2Pitt Matt 8B to 12B for the big tone passages: matt, so the dark mass reads as tone, not shine.
  3. 3Kneaded eraser (warm it) and the clean Mono Zero lift the lights out of the mass; the Mono Zero for sky holes and lit edges.
  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, medium tooth
  • 2B, 4B, 6B with long points
  • Kneaded eraser
  • Precision eraser
  • Slip sheet

Watch first

All videos →

Two- and three-value notan, the exact exercise the Mass studies start with.

YouTube
Subtractive drawing: symmetry and value in charcoalNathan Orosco · Laying a charcoal ground and lifting the lights out, the late-Corot method.How to sketch buildings and architecture: Greek ruinsPhil Davies Artist · A ruin blocked in from the envelope. Ink and wash, but the construction is identical in pencil.

The plan

4 stages · ~90 min
  1. 1

    Notan

    10 min

    Two values: sky paper, land dark. Thumbnail the land's top edge, with the ruin's silhouette as part of it.

    The same landscape reduced to two values, three values and four values, showing that the design is readable at two and complete at four2 VALUESThe design. If thisfails, nothing saves it.3 VALUESCorot's working number.4 VALUESFinished. More steps addpolish, not strength.Notan: the arrangement of light and dark, Japanese for "light-dark".Squint until the scene collapses to three flat shapes. Draw those first.Every lesson in the Mass unit starts here.A drawing with a good two-value design and bad details beats one with perfect details and no design.
    FigureTwo values first.
    Checklist0 / 2
  2. 2

    Lay the land

    30 min

    4B on its side: the whole land as one dark field up to the ridge line, ruin included. The sky as a pale gradient with the 2B, lightest at the top.

    A smooth gradient built from overlapping circular scumble layers, compared with a streaky gradient made from single-direction strokesWRONG · BANDED, ONE DIRECTIONRIGHT · LAYERED, EACH PASS STARTS LATERlayer 1 covers all, layer 2 starts later, layer 3 later still...Change stroke direction between layers and the bands vanish. Blend with a stump only at the very end, if atall.
    FigureA smooth gradient for the sky.
    Checklist0 / 3
  3. 3

    Lift the lights

    40 min

    Kneaded eraser: the lit tops of the rocks, the ruin's lit face, the path. 6B: the darkest crevices. Keep the ruin's silhouette crisp against the sky and its base lost into the land.

    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.
    FigureCrisp top, lost base.
    Checklist0 / 3
  4. 4

    Compare

    10 min

    Note, date, box.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • A dark land under a pale sky with a ruin on the join.
  • Rock tops that were lifted out, not drawn around.

Where it goes wrong

  • Drawing the stones of the ruin. A ruin is stones. At this distance it is a silhouette. Lift one lit face and stop.

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 ~120 min

Status

How did it go?

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