Silverpoint

Torrent in Tyrol

Torrent in Tyrol, Ruskin, n.d.
Art Institute of Chicago

Ruskin, Torrent in Tyrol, n.d.. Pen and ink on paper.

The Art Institute of Chicago · Gift of Mrs. Chauncey McCormick

Plate copyLine

Torrent in Tyrol

Ruskin: a plate copy from pen and ink

Torrent in Tyrol: Pen and ink on paper (The Art Institute of Chicago). A plate copy: the standard protocol for pen and ink applied to this one sheet at the size of your book, with Ruskin's own habits as the checklist. Find the part he finished and the part he abandoned. The finished part is the subject.

In pencilPen cannot be erased and cannot vary much in weight, so the drawing is made of decisions. Lay in with a pale H, then draw the pen's line with an HB held lightly, or a fine fibre-tip if you want the real thing. Tone, if any, is hatching.

Difficulty
Time
about 2 h
You draw with
H graphite for the lay-in, fine pen optional
The broken lineLine weightSix families of markTone from line

Why this one

  • Draw the fragment. One capital, one bough, one course of stones, all the way to understanding.
  • Shading as a slow, even skin laid with a fine point, never a smudge.
  • Look longer than you draw.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Grafwood H H for layout and line. Long points from the Blackwing on everything up to B.
  2. 2Grafwood H for the lay-in; a fine pen if you have bought one, else a needle-pointed Grafwood F the pen studies are about the broken line, not the ink.
  3. 3Kneaded eraser and the Mono Zero press-and-lift corrections only; the Mono Zero for a single sharp light.
  4. 4Alpha 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
  • H graphite for the lay-in
  • A fine fibre-tip (0.1 to 0.3) or a dip pen
  • Kneaded eraser

Watch first

All videos →

Timothy Wilcox on the Normandy tours and the Architectural Antiquities etchings. The architectural half of this course, explained by its curator.

YouTube
Cotman in Normandy at Dulwich Picture GalleryDulwich Picture Gallery · Ten minutes with the drawings on the wall. Watch how few values Cotman uses.Giovanni Battista Piranesi etchings: the Views (Vedute di Roma)Busy Baçi · The whole Vedute series paged through. Note how small the figures are and how large Rome becomes.

The plan

4 stages · ~70 min
  1. 1

    Read the plate first

    5 min

    Before any mark, look at Torrent in Tyrol for five minutes with the pencil down. Find the eye level or the horizon. Find the lightest light and the darkest dark and notice whether they touch. Count the big shapes: it is rarely more than four. Say what the picture is about in one sentence.

    Checklist0 / 3
  2. 2

    Envelope and masses

    15 min

    Measure the sheet's proportion and draw the envelope lightly at the size you will work. Place the horizon as a fraction of the height. Block the three or four big shapes as pale outlines, checking each against the others with the pencil held at arm's length. No detail yet; if a line is inside a shape, it is too early.

    TipBeginners rush this stage. Masters spend half the drawing here.

    Checklist0 / 3
  3. 3

    The pen line

    40 min

    Over the pale lay-in, draw every line as a decision: one stroke, no feathering, no going back. Where the original hatches, hatch with the same spacing and direction. Where it leaves paper, leave paper.

    Checklist0 / 3
  4. 4

    Compare and note

    10 min

    Side by side with the original: where did you add what was not there? Where did you darken what was light? Write one sentence on the sheet about what to change next time. Date it. Box it.

    Checklist0 / 2

What it should look like

  • A drawing of single, confident lines.
  • Hatching that reads as tone from a distance and as line up close.

Where it goes wrong

  • Feathered lines. Fear of commitment. Ghost the stroke in the air twice, then draw it once.

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 nextA Byzantine column capital

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