Silverpoint

St James's Street

St. James's Street, Whistler, 1878
Art Institute of Chicago

Whistler, St. James's Street, 1878. Etching in black ink on off-white laid paper.

Pins mark where to look before you draw.

The Art Institute of Chicago · Clarence Buckingham Collection

Master studyLine

St James's Street

A street in one-point, finished where the eye goes and fading everywhere else

An 1878 etching looking down St James's Street toward the palace: tall facades converging, carriages and figures on the eye level, and a drawing that is dense near the middle and dissolves toward the edges until the margins are bare. The one-point street as Whistler draws it.

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 2.5 h
You draw with
H, HB and 2B graphite
One-point perspectiveEye levelFigures for scaleFocal hierarchyDividing bays in perspective

Why this one

  • One-point perspective with the vanishing point inside the sheet and visible.
  • Finish concentrated around the vanishing point, falling off outward.
  • Crowds as texture on the eye level.

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
How to draw using 1-point perspectiveCircle Line Art School · The shortest clean explanation of the vanishing point.

The plan

4 stages · ~105 min
  1. 1

    Eye level and vanishing point

    15 min

    Draw the eye level through the heads. Mark the vanishing point on it where the street ends. Ghost the two kerb lines and the two cornice lines to it.

    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.
    FigureEverything parallel to the street meets at one point.
    Checklist0 / 3
  2. 2

    Facades by bays

    40 min

    H: divide each facade into bays with the diagonal method, then window rows converging to the point. Draw the bays nearest the vanishing point most carefully and leave the nearest ones half-drawn, as the plate does.

    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.
    FigureEqual bays in perspective by diagonals.
    Checklist0 / 3
  3. 3

    The crowd and the darks

    40 min

    HB and 2B: figures as vertical shorthand with heads on the eye level, carriages as dark boxes, the darkest accents in the middle distance. Fade everything toward the margins until the paper is bare.

    The same doorway drawn without and with a small figure; the figure's head sits on the eye-level line, which fixes the scale of everythingNO FIGURE · ANY SIZEWITH A FIGURE · A CATHEDRAL DOOReye levelStanding on the same ground as you, every adult's head is on your eye level, near orfar. Only the feet move.Prout dropped two or three figures into every street. They are rulers, not people.
    FigureHeads on the line, feet tell the distance.
    Checklist0 / 3
  4. 4

    Compare

    10 min

    Does your eye go to the vanishing point? Note, date, box.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • A street that pulls the eye into the distance.
  • A drawing that is finished in the middle and bare at the edges.
  • People as marks, not portraits.

Where it goes wrong

  • Equal finish to the edges. The margins look empty. They are meant to. Stop drawing two inches from each edge.

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 ~150 min

Status

How did it go?

Up nextDemolition of Old Houses in Paris

Before this, ideally

Related studies