Silverpoint

Fortresses in the Tyrol

Fortresses in Tyrol, near Mals (recto); Castle in Lenzburg (verso), Ruskin, 1839/1900
Art Institute of Chicago

Ruskin, Fortresses in Tyrol, near Mals (recto); Castle in Lenzburg (verso), 1839/1900. Graphite (recto and verso) on buff wove paper.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Art Institute of Chicago · Gift of Charles Deering McCormick, Brooks McCormick, and the Estate of Roger McCormick

Master studyLine

Fortresses in the Tyrol

A castle on a crag in pencil: the rock drawn as carefully as the wall

A pencil sheet from Ruskin's Alpine travels: a fortress on a crag near Mals, the rock's strata drawn with the same attention as the walls, a tiny figure at the bottom. Ruskin believed a mountain had anatomy and drew it that way.

Difficulty
Time
about 2 h
You draw with
2H, H, HB graphite
Plumb and levelMasonry coursingThe ruin's silhouetteFigures for scaleLine weight

Why this one

  • Rock as structure: strata, cleavage, the direction of the mass.
  • A building growing out of its rock, not sitting on it.
  • A pale, exact pencil line with no tone to hide behind.

From your kit

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

Stone and brick texture; use it for the near courses only and let tone do the rest.

YouTube
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 · ~105 min
  1. 1

    The mass and its direction

    15 min

    2H: the crag as one shape, with the direction of its strata marked by three or four long lines. The fortress as a smaller shape on top.

    Blocking in: a church is first enclosed in a simple envelope of five straight lines, then subdivided into big masses, and only then given its details1 · ENVELOPE2 · BIG MASSES3 · DETAIL LASTSpend half your time on stage one. If the envelope is right, nothing after it can gobadly wrong.Beginners start at the window. Masters start at the envelope.
    FigureEnvelope, masses, then detail.
    Checklist0 / 3
  2. 2

    Rock as anatomy

    40 min

    H: the strata as lines that follow the rock's structure, breaking where it breaks. Not texture: structure. Where the rock is in shadow, the strata lines close up.

    Stone wall: on the left every stone is outlined and the wall looks like a net; on the right only the courses run through, a few stones are suggested near the edges and the eye, and tone carries the restWRONG · EVERY STONE DRAWNRIGHT · COURSES, STONES SUGGESTEDDraw the horizontal courses as broken lines. Add vertical joints only near openings,corners and the bottom. Let tone do the middle.Cotman's Haute Allemagne tower: hundreds of stones implied, perhaps forty actually drawn.
    FigureCourses in stone; strata in rock. Same logic.
    Checklist0 / 2
  3. 3

    Walls, towers, figure

    40 min

    HB: the fortress walls plumb, their courses horizontal against the tilted strata; windows as voids; the tower's silhouette crisp. The figure last.

    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.
    FigureA crisp silhouette on a soft mass.
    Checklist0 / 3
  4. 4

    Compare

    10 min

    Note, date, box.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • A building that grows out of a rock you understand.
  • Pale lines, no tone, and still depth.

Where it goes wrong

  • Rock as scribble. Rock looks random. It is not. Find the direction of the strata and every line obeys 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 ~120 min

Status

How did it go?

Up nextOak from Rocks

Before this, ideally

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