Silverpoint drawing-how to do it

I like silverpoint drawing. It is an unusual technique which few artists use.It encourages delicate and controlled working for it is almost impossible to erase a mistake.

Silverpoint works because the silver is rubbed off the drawing point as it strokes the the the ground on which you draw . What you need to make a drawing is a piece of silver wire, the means of holding it comfortably and a prepared surface on which to draw. Any artist possessed of a little initiative can easily arrange these things.

I bought my silver wire from a jeweller in Newcastle.I first approached a silversmith in Carlisle but he gave me the brush off and seemed quite pompous about the whole thing....maybe he thought I was wasting his time. When you buy your wire explain what you want it for and an intelligent craftsman is likely to be more sympathetic and maybe interested-and will understand that you are not a competitor. An inch of wire will go a long way.Two could last a lifetime. As you can see from the illustration I mounted my wire in a plastic penholder. In the UK this is called a mapping pen. The nib was removed and the wire held in place with epoxy putty.When making your silverpoint bear in mind that silver is relatively soft and pliable so do not make it too long.Not more than about one half of an inch should protrude from the holder.

And now for the drawing surface-the ground as connoisseurs would call it.I use a fairly smooth paper and coat it with white gouache. The gouache should be quite thin and flowing. You should not aim for a plaster like surface. A chalky look to the paper will be enough. You might wish to tint the gouache slightly- a pink effect is sometimes found in Renaissance work.But go carefully-silverpoint produces delicate marks which darken somewhat as the silver on the paper tarnishes over the years.I have sometimes uses a dilute acrylic paint as the ground for silverpoint. This has the advantage of being waterproof but I do not think that it is as receptive to the silverpoint as a more chalky surface.You might consider adding some acrylic gel to the gouache if you want a slightly more waterproof surface-but the look should still be matte.

On a personal note my first attempt at silverpoint was made when I was a schoolboy. An old silverplated spoon made a rather awkward drawing implement and some white watercolour served as the ground.

Raymond Mason

BMAG Collection Centre Raymond Mason
Originally uploaded by steve & lynda
A Tragedy in the North

Just yesterday I was rereading Raymond Mason's collected writings, At Work in Paris: now ,today I opened my newspaper to read the sad news of his death in Paris on 14 February. He was utterly unique and there was no one remotely like him on the UK or French art scene.

Mason is an artist who interests me because he had a highly original view of sculpture and was an excellent draughtsman.That he was also an excellent writer/speaker is also evident from the book I mentioned.I took it up because I wanted to refresh my image of Henry Moore whom Mason knew. Moore comes across as a genial but sometimes pompous soul who is concerned for his status and obviously saw himself as the leader of the first eleven of UK sculpture. Given the way many of his acolytes developed this was not necesarilly a good thing.

This contrasts with the line being put forward by theTate Britain who are trying to stress a darker more disturbing side to Moore's work. I don't see it myself and I will need some convincing for it seems to me that the curator has let his imagination run away with him and manufacturing something which cannot reasonably be found. Compared to Miro, Masson or Picasso he is far too genteel and the post war work of Moore is not evidence of a great old age.

But let me praise Mason for his remarkable drawings of townscapes and human anatomy. Let me also praise him for his willingness to make sculptures which deal with the disasters and sadness of contemporary life. The sculpture of the Tragedy in the North (the aftermath of a mining disaster) is too much in 3D to be called a relief and it is painted in the colours of life. I have often thought it grotesque and clumsy but even if that is the case it has a Hogarthian vigour which is unusual nowadays. My preference is for the earlier reliefs such as theBarcelona Tram .

Let me finish by mentioning some of the other texts in Mason's book. There is a beautiful essay on Cartier-Bresson -Mason seems to have known everyone in Paris - which describes Mason's experiences as sitter and observer of the photographer at work. There is a memoir of Dubuffet which is striking to say the least. He appears as very intelligent, generous,mercurial and irascible.There are also texts on Picasso, Giacometti,Balthus and various important dealers. Regarding Giacometti we find that Mason approves of James Lord's biography-his opinion differing from that of Sylvester.

At Work in Paris by Raymond Mason, Thames & Hudson 2003

Poem

Ellingham
Bellingham
Eglingham
Edlingham
Beltingham

(the words all end in a "jum" sound)

how to paint like a Pre-Raphaelite

                                 Our English Coasts:Holman Hunt

If you want to paint like a Pre-Raphaelite there are one or two technical points which will help you achieve a rich, detailed and lustrous surface. One of the most interesting of the group from a technical point of view was William Holman Hunt and I am going to explain the method he used when painting Our English Coasts 1852 (Strayed Sheep) which is in the collection at Tate Britain.

To obtain the kind of surface that Hunt aimed for you could certainly consider the following:

Use an oil rich painting medium.
Use sable rather than bristle brushes for your detailed work.

The advantages of an oil rich painting medium are that you have a buttery medium which dries to a lustrous, enamel like surface. Hunt said that his formula was:to use equal quantities of walnut or poppy oil,copal varnish and turpentine.

These materials may be obtained from good art material shops.

The advantages of sable brushes are that they give much finer, neater lines than you can get with bristle brushes and with broader sables they can give a softer,more even touch.They are very expensive and need careful looking after.

Hunt worked on a white ground, which also helps if the paintwork is thin and the ground can reflect light through it.He said that he would cover the underdrawing on his canvas with a thin layer of spatula applied white oil from which most of the oil had in fact been removed by allowing the paint to stand on a newspaper. Before applying this thin layer he added a drop of varnish.

So he sometimes was painting wet into wet-and with a very light touch.


You can get further detailed information on Hunt and from: Completing the Picture: materials and techniques of twenty-six paintings in the Tate Gallery.This was published by the Tate Gallery , London in 1982. No overall author is listed but the foreword is by Allan Bowness.The actual section on Hunt is by Christine Leback Sitwell.

why paper grain matters to an artist

Have you ever tried to fold a large sheet of paper preparatory to tearing or cutting it into two pieces? If you produced a neat clean fold then you were folding with the paper grain. If the paper cracked and was difficult to fold then you were working against the grain. It is a fact that most paper is made by machine nowadays and the pulp fibres tend to lie in a consistent direction. You can also find grain in artists' quality papers.

The nature of paper grain has long been known to bookbinders who regularly paste papers with a variety of glues. If the papers being glued do not have their fibres running in the same direction then the tensions within the book will tend to warp it.

These tensions can occur in different degrees when making collages or mounting drawings. If the paper is not treated properly it will not be possible to glue it in place without wrinkling and distortion occurring.If you want to make thin pasteboard-which can be very strong, then you should assemble the layers so that the grain of each sheet lies in the same direction. I will say more on this when I write about the making of glue and the practice of gluing paper .

There are many ways of determining paper grain. Which way does the paper fold easiest? That is the direction of the grain. This method works with large sheets of paper. Imagine a rectangular sheet. If it folds easiest from short side to short side then the grain runs parallel to that side and vice versa. If you have only a small square of paper then moisten it and see which way it tends to curl. The direction of curl is parallel to the grain.