Silverpoint

The Hamlet of Optevoz

The Hamlet of Optevoz, Daubigny, ca. 1852
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Daubigny, The Hamlet of Optevoz, ca. 1852. Charcoal and lead white.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Rogers Fund, 1912

Master studyMass

The Hamlet of Optevoz

Roofs and trees in charcoal, with the lights picked out in white

A charcoal drawing of about 1852, heightened with white: a cluster of farm buildings, a tree mass, the roofs catching the light. Daubigny treats the hamlet exactly as he treats a tree clump: one mass, a few lit planes, a broken edge.

Difficulty
Time
about 2 h
You draw with
willow charcoal or 4B and 6B graphite, kneaded eraser
Grouping valuesCharcoal: the late Corot methodRoof planes and slatesHard, soft and lost edgesErasers as drawing tools

Why this one

  • Buildings as a landscape mass, not as architecture.
  • Lit roofs as the lights lifted from a dark cluster.
  • Trees and houses sharing one silhouette.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Grafwood 4B, 6B 4B, 6B for the darks, on their sides for mass. Long points from the Blackwing on everything up to B.
  2. 2Willow charcoal, or until it arrives Pitt Matt 12B and 14B on their sides the matt grades are the closest graphite gets to willow. Slip sheet under the hand.
  3. 3Pitt Matt 14B, knife-sharpened stands in for the charcoal pencil: trunk, branch zig-zag, the one accent.
  4. 4Kneaded eraser (warm it) and the clean Mono Zero lift the lights out of the mass; the Mono Zero for sky holes and lit edges.
  5. 5Alpha 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 cheap newsprint
  • Willow charcoal, medium
  • Charcoal pencil
  • Kneaded eraser
  • Stump
  • Workable fixative

Watch first

All videos →

Broad charcoal masses and lifted lights; the closest thing on YouTube to a late Corot being made.

YouTube
Subtractive drawing: symmetry and value in charcoalNathan Orosco · Laying a charcoal ground and lifting the lights out, the late-Corot method.

The plan

4 stages · ~90 min
  1. 1

    One silhouette

    10 min

    Thumbnail the hamlet and its tree as one shape against the sky. Two values.

    The same scene with values scattered like confetti, which reads as noise, next to values grouped into three big connected shapes, which reads as a pictureSCATTERED · CONFETTIGROUPED · THREE BIG SHAPESLink your darks into one shape. Link your lights into one shape. Let a mid valuehold them apart.Corot's trees, ground shadow and foreground are one dark. That is why his pictures feel calm.
    FigureGroup the hamlet and tree.
    Checklist0 / 2
  2. 2

    The mass

    30 min

    Side of the stick: the whole cluster as one middle-dark mass, tree and houses together. Sky as paper. Ground as a pale tone.

    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".
    FigureHouses are masses too.
    Checklist0 / 2
  3. 3

    Roofs lifted, darks placed

    40 min

    Kneaded eraser pressed to a chisel: the lit roof planes, each a clean lift. Charcoal pencil: the dark under each eave, a doorway, the tree's trunk. Lose the cluster's base into the ground.

    A pitched slate roof in perspective: rows converge toward the vanishing point, the near rows show individual slates and the far rows dissolve into tonenear eave: slatesdrawnridge: tone onlyA roof is a tilted plane: light if it faces the sky, with its texture fading as itrecedes.Count your drawn slates. More than two rows is a texture, more than four is a mistake.
    FigureA roof is a plane in light.
    Checklist0 / 3
  4. 4

    Compare

    10 min

    Note, date, box.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • A hamlet that is one shape with lit roofs.
  • No outlined walls.
  • Soft base, crisp roofs.

Where it goes wrong

  • Drawing houses. They are houses. They are a mass with lit planes. Lay the mass, lift the planes.

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?

Up nextWillows and Farmhouse at Sainte-Catherine-lès-Arras

Before this, ideally

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