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Corot and the masters
A single late Corot looked at slowly; watch for the three divisions of light and the lost edges.
YouTubeA dealer's short introduction to the hand: Italy, Ville-d'Avray, the silvery late manner.
YouTubeThe best full documentary on Corot available free. French narration; turn on auto-translated captions.
YouTubeNot a lesson: a slow slideshow to leave running while you draw, to absorb the value range of a lifetime.
YouTubeCurators handle Corot's actual glass plates and prints. French; the images carry it even without captions.
YouTubeTimothy Wilcox on the Normandy tours and the Architectural Antiquities etchings. The architectural half of this course, explained by its curator.
YouTubeTen minutes with the drawings on the wall. Watch how few values Cotman uses.
YouTubeThe whole Vedute series paged through. Note how small the figures are and how large Rome becomes.
YouTubeA proper talk on how Piranesi built his plates and why they still work.
YouTubeEtching, lithography, cliché-verre
A living architectural pencil draughtsman at work. The closest modern analogue to the Forrest side of this course.
YouTubeFour minutes that make every etching in this catalogue legible: ground, needle, acid, ink, wipe, press.
YouTubeFilmed at the Rembrandt House. The clearest view of drawing with a needle through ground, which is why etched line looks the way it does.
YouTubeShows how a plate is bitten in stages for lighter and darker line, the origin of counted tone.
YouTubeA modern printmaker inking and wiping a plate. Watch how much tone lives in the wipe.
YouTubeCorot's 1871 autographies are crayon lithographs. This is the process in four minutes.
YouTubeGrease and water on a stone, demonstrated in Edinburgh, Forrest's city.
YouTubeThe drawing stage only: litho crayon on stone behaves like charcoal on toothed paper. That is why the Corot lithographs look like his fusains.
YouTubeTools and marks
Tripod and overhand grips, and drawing from the shoulder. Watch before Foundations session 1.
YouTubeThe long point, step by step, with the sandpaper block.
YouTubeA second angle on the same skill; useful if the first one did not click.
YouTubeAll six mark families in one sitting.
YouTubeCross-hatching taught as a value system, which is how the etchers used it.
YouTubeShort, practical, about angle and spacing discipline.
YouTubeOn the quality of each individual line inside a hatch, which is what separates Meryon from a beginner.
YouTubeSquinting, value scales and why beginners under-read darks.
YouTubeLaying a charcoal ground and lifting the lights out, the late-Corot method.
YouTubeBroad charcoal masses and lifted lights; the closest thing on YouTube to a late Corot being made.
YouTubeValue grouping and a dark foreground frame, in charcoal.
YouTubeThree recorded lessons condensed; methodical and slow.
YouTubePermission to be loose. Watch the side-of-the-stick strokes.
YouTubeCharcoal pencil for the branch zig-zag and the darkest accents.
YouTubeSeeing and measuring
Corot drew his late figures from memory of the pose. Proko shows the drill: look, close the book, draw the gesture, compare.
YouTubeTwo- and three-value notan, the exact exercise the Mass studies start with.
YouTubeShadow shapes as flat masses first. Shown on a portrait, but the principle is identical for a tree or a tower.
YouTubeSighting angles with a pencil against level and plumb.
YouTubeComparative measurement with a straight arm, demonstrated on a still life.
YouTubeUnit-counting on a real subject.
YouTubeThe negative-shape habit, which places Prout's pinnacles and Corot's branches.
YouTubeA longer drill on drawing the gaps.
YouTubeThumbnails as design, not sketches. Pairs with the viewfinder.
YouTubeThe short version for a complete beginner.
YouTubeThe memory exercises behind Corot's souvenir method.
YouTubeLook, turn, draw, compare, for beginners.
YouTubeMass: trees, air, water
Trees as masses in graphite, with the edge texture where it belongs.
YouTubeClump construction and sky holes.
YouTubeVertical strokes, darker lights, horizontal breaks: the pond at Ville-d'Avray in method.
YouTubeFive hills, five values, in graphite.
YouTubeThe same idea in a full landscape.
YouTubeGentle, narrated, and exactly the beginner level.
YouTubeLine and architecture
A street in one point from a blank page. The Old College Wynd set-up.
YouTubeThe shortest clean explanation of the vanishing point.
YouTubeThe corner view, built slowly.
YouTubeLonger, covers dividing bays and off-page vanishing points.
YouTubeApplied to an old building with a tower.
YouTubeStructure first, then tone, on a real stone building. The method of the Architecture studies in a modern hand.
YouTubeLine weight hierarchy and when to stop, from an architect.
YouTubeTwo centres, two arcs, in ninety seconds.
YouTubeEquilateral, lancet and drop arches constructed properly with a compass.
YouTubeTrefoil and quatrefoil geometry, the tracery lesson's circles.
YouTubeHow the masons did it on site, which is how you do it in the field with a pencil.
YouTubeStone and brick texture; use it for the near courses only and let tone do the rest.
YouTubeA ruin blocked in from the envelope. Ink and wash, but the construction is identical in pencil.
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