Silverpoint

Mass

MassCorot's move

Branch logic

The trunk tapers. Every fork changes direction and thins. Branches dive into the foliage; not one ends in open air. Work from the ground up, the way the tree grew.

Corot drew his branches working upward from the ground, zig-zagging, and disappearing into the leaves. That sentence contains the whole method. Start at the base of the trunk, which is widest. At the first fork, each limb is thinner than the trunk and heads off in a new direction. At the next fork, thinner again, and another change of direction. Nothing in a tree goes straight for long. By the fourth or fifth fork the branch is a line, and it should vanish into a foliage clump rather than end in air.

The total cross-section stays roughly constant at a fork: a thick trunk splits into two medium limbs, not a thick one and a thin one at full thickness. Get this wrong and the tree looks glued together.

Where a branch passes behind a clump and reappears, draw it reappearing in line with where it went in. Where a branch is in front of the canopy, draw it darker than the foliage behind it; where it is inside, lighter or lost.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Pitt Matt 6B to 12B, on their sides mass is laid, not drawn; matt graphite reads as tone, not shine.
  2. 2Kneaded eraser, warmed, plus the clean Mono Zero the lights are lifted out of the mass, not left.
  3. 3Grafwood 4B, long point the one accent inside the mass: a trunk, a dark doorway.

Visuals

Corot's branch logic: a trunk that tapers, branches that change direction at every fork in a zig-zag, and limbs that disappear into the foliage clumps instead of ending in airWRONG · LOLLIPOP, ENDS IN AIRsame width top to bottom, straight limbsRIGHT · TAPERS, ZIG-ZAGS, DIVES INchangesdirection atevery forkvanishes into the massWork from the ground UP, the way the tree grew. Each fork: thinner, and a newdirection.Corot drew the branches zig-zagging upward and disappearing into the leaves. Not one of them ends in open air.
FigureLollipop versus zig-zag. Direction changes at every fork.
Bent Tree by the Water, Corot, 1860/70
Art Institute of Chicago

Corot, Bent Tree by the Water, 1860/70. Charcoal, with stumping and erasing, on cream wove paper, laid down on cream board.

Corot, Bent Tree by the Water. Follow the trunk up: it leans, forks, changes direction, thins, and every limb ends inside foliage.

The Art Institute of Chicago · Harold Joachim Birthday Fund, purchased with funds provided by the Alsdorf Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. William O. Hunt and Frank B. Hubachek

Pitfalls

What

Branches that end in a point in open sky.

Why

Trees do not do that; twigs end in buds, which read as foliage mass.

Fix

Either dive the branch into a clump or end it in a small scribbled cluster.