Silverpoint

Kidwelly Castle

Kidwelly Castle, Seymour Haden, 1859
Cleveland Museum of Art

Seymour Haden, Kidwelly Castle, 1859. etching.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Cleveland Museum of Art · In memory of Ralph King, gift of Mrs. Ralph King; Ralph T. Woods, Charles G. King; and Frances King Schafer

Master studyLine + Mass

Kidwelly Castle

A castle on its hill, a river under it, drawn from nature in an afternoon

Etched on the plate in front of the castle in 1859: the keep and curtain wall as a silhouette on the hill, trees against it, the river in the foreground carrying a soft reflection. Haden's speed shows and is the lesson: the line is quick, truthful and never fussed.

In pencilAn etched line is a drawn line. Copy it with hard grades and long points: tone from the spacing and direction of lines, cross-hatching only in the darkest third, no smudging anywhere.

Difficulty
Time
about 2 h
You draw with
H, HB, 2B graphite
The ruin's silhouetteWater as a mirrorThe framing deviceThe broken lineBuilding a tree from masses

Why this one

  • A ruin as silhouette, with the sky doing the work behind it.
  • Reflection as a softer, broken repeat.
  • Speed as a method: nothing here was drawn twice.

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
How to create realistic water reflections with graphite pencilsPeonypaint · Vertical strokes, darker lights, horizontal breaks: the pond at Ville-d'Avray in method.Printmaking process: intaglioMinneapolis Institute of Art · Four minutes that make every etching in this catalogue legible: ground, needle, acid, ink, wipe, press.

The plan

4 stages · ~100 min
  1. 1

    Silhouette

    15 min

    H: the castle's outline as one shape, broken top edge and all, on the hill. The horizon and the river bank as two lines. Nothing inside anything.

    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.
    FigureOne stable mass, a broken top.
    Checklist0 / 2
  2. 2

    Trees and the reflection

    40 min

    HB: the near tree as a mass with a few branches, fast. The castle's reflection: the same silhouette upside down, softer, broken by horizontal strokes. 2B for the tree's darks and the water's darkest band.

    Still water as a mirror: reflections drawn with vertical strokes, a half-step darker than what they reflect, and broken by a few horizontal ripple lineswater linesky: value 1sky's reflection: value 2 (darker)Everything reflects straight down from its base. Vertical strokes. Lights darker,darks lighter. Then break it with three horizontals.Corot's ponds are the sky laid flat, a half-step darker, with the grain of the paper left for sparkle.
    FigureA softer, broken repeat.
    Checklist0 / 3
  3. 3

    Tone from line, fast

    35 min

    Haden hatched quickly: parallel lines following the hill, the wall, the water. Match his spacing in each area in under forty minutes. If you are slower, you are fussing.

    The etcher's value scale: five steps from white paper to near-black made only with line, first parallel hatch, then a second layer crossing, then a third, then a fourthVALUE FROM LINE ONLY · HOW AN ETCHING THINKSpaperlight1 layerlight halftone2 layershalftone3 layersshadow4 layersdarkEach layer crosses the last at a new angle. Keep spacing even within a layer. Letthe line weight stay constant.Meryon, Cotman, Forrest: every shadow is counted in layers. This is the discipline the Line unit builds.
    FigureSpacing is the value.
    Checklist0 / 2
  4. 4

    Compare

    10 min

    Where did you slow down and fuss? Note it. Date, box.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • A castle you read as one shape.
  • A reflection you believe without counting its stones.
  • A drawing that looks like it took an afternoon.

Where it goes wrong

  • Stones in the castle. A castle is made of stones. At this distance it is made of one value. Draw that.

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 nextOld Battersea Bridge

Before this, ideally

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