Silverpoint

Tools

Line + Mass

Erasers as drawing tools

A kneaded eraser lifts lights out of tone. A precision eraser draws a highlight. Neither is for mistakes.

In this program an eraser is a light-coloured pencil. You lay a field of tone, then you lift the lights out of it. A kneaded eraser, warmed and shaped to a point or a wedge, dabs and drags graphite off the paper without damaging the tooth. Corot did the same with bread. A pen-style precision eraser (around 2.3 mm) draws a crisp light line: a sliver of sky through branches, the top edge of a sunlit wall, one pane of a window catching the light.

The sequence is always tone first, light second. Lay the mass of a tree a little darker than you want it, then lift the sky holes and the lit clumps with the kneaded eraser. The lifted light sits inside the mass instead of beside it, which is how foliage reads as solid.

A white vinyl block is for removing construction lines cleanly before you commit tone, and that is all. Never the pink school eraser, which smears and tears.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Mono Zero 2.3 mm (the clean one) the pale pencil: draw lights with it, pulled in the direction of the form.
  2. 2Kneaded eraser, warmed, kneaded to a point or a chisel soft lights lifted out of tone; roll, do not rub.
  3. 3Pitt Matt 8B on its side lay the field you will draw into with the erasers.

Visuals

Sky holes in a foliage mass: a few irregular gaps near the edges of the canopy, with a branch visible through the largest, compared with evenly scattered round holesWRONG · POLKA DOTSRIGHT · FEW, IRREGULAR, AT THE EDGEa branch crosses the holeHoles happen where clumps fail to meet. Shape them like the gaps between fingers ofa loose fist.Three good sky holes make a tree breathe. Twelve make it a sponge.
FigureSky holes are lifted out of a laid mass with a shaped kneaded eraser, not left as white paper from the start.
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, charcoal with stumping and erasing. The museum's own description names the method: the lights in the foliage and ground were lifted.

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

Erasing a mistake and leaving a scrubbed grey ghost.

Why

The paper's tooth is damaged and will not take tone evenly again.

Fix

Lift with a kneaded eraser by pressing and rolling, not rubbing. Better still, draw lightly enough that mistakes can be drawn over.