Silverpoint

A Street in Rouen

A Street in Rouen, Lalanne, 1884
Cleveland Museum of Art

Lalanne, A Street in Rouen, 1884. etching on chine collé.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Cleveland Museum of Art · Gift of John Bonebrake

Master studyLine

A Street in Rouen

Timber houses, a spire, and a crowd on the eye level

An 1884 plate: a narrow Rouen street of jettied timber houses leaning toward each other, the cathedral spire closing the view, market figures filling the bottom quarter. Everything Forrest's closes do, in a French town and with a spire instead of a castle.

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 3 h
You draw with
H, HB and 2B graphite
One-point perspectiveEye levelFigures for scaleAerial perspectiveThe broken line

Why this one

  • The narrow street in one-point with buildings that lean and jetty.
  • A spire as the vertical that stops the eye.
  • A crowd drawn as one textured band.

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 street in one point from a blank page. The Old College Wynd set-up.

YouTube
Aerial perspective tutorialWindy Lampson · Five hills, five values, in graphite.

The plan

4 stages · ~120 min
  1. 1

    Eye level, vanishing point, spire

    15 min

    Eye level through the crowd's heads; vanishing point where the street turns; the spire's vertical placed by measurement against the width.

    One-point perspective of a narrow lane: all receding edges converge to a single vanishing point on the eye-level line, while verticals stay vertical and horizontals stay horizontalVPeye levelUse it when you look straight down a street, a nave, a wynd. Verticals stay plumb.Cross-lines stay level.Forrest's Old College Wynd, Meryon's Paris streets, every cathedral nave: one point.
    FigureOne point for the street.
    Checklist0 / 3
  2. 2

    The leaning houses

    45 min

    H: each house as a tall box converging to the point, jettied storeys stepping forward, gables breaking the roofline. Lean them as the plate leans them; check each vertical against your pencil.

    Dividing a receding wall into equal bays with the diagonal method: a centre line is drawn to the vanishing point, and each new bay is found where a diagonal through the previous bay's midpoint crosses the far edgeDraw bay 1 by eye. Find its centre with an X. Run a line from the top of bay 1through the centre of its far edge: where it hits the base is bay 2's far edge.Equal in the world means shrinking on the page. Never measure receding bays with a ruler.
    FigureStoreys by division.
    Checklist0 / 3
  3. 3

    Air and crowd

    50 min

    H for the spire and far end: pale, thin, few lines. HB for the middle. 2B for the near houses' darks and the crowd's shorthand. The crowd is one band of marks.

    Aerial perspective: five overlapping hills, each lighter, bluer-feeling, lower in contrast and softer-edged than the one in front of itnearestfarthestvalue range shrinks with distanceAir is a veil. Each mile adds a layer. Distance is drawn with a lighter pencil, not with smaller detail.
    FigureFar pale, near dark.
    Checklist0 / 3
  4. 4

    Compare

    10 min

    Note, date, box.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • A street that narrows and a spire that stops it.
  • Air between you and the far end.
  • A crowd you cannot count.

Where it goes wrong

  • The spire as dark as the near houses. It is the subject. It is the farthest thing. H, one pass, leave it.

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 ~180 min

Status

How did it go?

Up nextRuins of a Monastery

Before this, ideally

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