Silverpoint

The Lonely Tower

The Lonely Tower, Palmer, 1879
Cleveland Museum of Art

Palmer, The Lonely Tower, 1879. etching.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Cleveland Museum of Art · Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis B. Williams, presented in honor of Henry Sayles Francis, Curator of Prints

Master studyLine + Mass

The Lonely Tower

Palmer's night, to set beside Corot's: a point of light in a web of line

Palmer's 1879 etching after Milton's Il Penseroso: a tower on a hill against a night sky, a crescent moon, two figures in the foreground, and the whole plate woven from thousands of fine lines in layers. Draw it beside Corot's lithograph of the same title: Corot's tower is a mass in air, Palmer's is a glow in a web.

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, 2B, 4B graphite
Layering, not pressureSix families of markTone from lineFocal hierarchyThe ruin's silhouette

Why this one

  • Tone built from many fine lines in layers, each layer a different direction.
  • A night scene where everything is a value darker than you think, except one light.
  • The direct companion to Corot's Lonely Tower in this catalogue.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Grafwood H, HB, 2B, 4B H, HB for layout and line; 2B, 4B 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 →

All six mark families in one sitting.

YouTube
Achieve perfect cross-hatching in 7 minutesMichael Riley · Short, practical, about angle and spacing discipline.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 · ~135 min
  1. 1

    Map the values

    15 min

    Squint: the plate is four values and one point of light. Thumbnail them. Mark the lit window as the only paper.

    A landscape where the focal point, a tower, has the strongest contrast, the sharpest edges and the only fine detail, while everything else is softer and closer in valuehere only: 1 beside 9,sharpest edge, onlydetaileverywhere else: softer edges,narrower value range, no detailThe eye goes where contrast, sharpness and detail coincide. Allow that to happen inexactly one place.Spend your darkest dark and your whitest white together, once, on purpose.
    FigureEverything serves one point.
    Checklist0 / 2
  2. 2

    First layer

    40 min

    H: the whole sheet except the window hatched in one direction at a wide spacing, the sky included. This is the night's first layer.

    Six families of mark: parallel hatch, cross-hatch, contour hatch, scumble, stipple, and the broken lineParallelCross-hatchContour hatchScumble (circular)StippleBroken / wiryCorot: scumble and contour hatch for foliage. The etchers: parallel and cross-hatch for stone. All six live inone drawing.
    FigureSix families of mark; start with one.
    Checklist0 / 2
  3. 3

    Layers in new directions

    70 min

    HB, then 2B, then 4B: each darker zone gets another layer in a new direction, the tower's silhouette and the hill getting the most. The sky gets one more layer away from the moon. Stop when the window is the only paper and it glows.

    Two swatches of the same middle value: one made by pressing hard with a hard pencil, which grooves and shines, and one made by light layers of a soft pencilWRONG · 2H, PRESSED HARDgrooves, shines, cannot go darkerRIGHT · 2B, THREE LAYERSmatte, keeps tooth, can go darkerRule: reach a value with a softer pencil and lighter touch, never a harderpencil and more force.Pressure is a one-way door. Layers are reversible.
    FigureLayers, not pressure.
    Checklist0 / 3
  4. 4

    Compare

    10 min

    Side by side with Corot's tower. Note what each does. Date, box.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • A night woven from fine lines.
  • One point of light that glows because everything else is dark.
  • No pressure visible anywhere.

Where it goes wrong

  • Pressing for the night. It needs to be dark. Four layers of H and HB are darker than one layer of 6B and far more luminous.

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 nextOpening the Fold, or Early Morning

Before this, ideally

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