Silverpoint Drawing and NGA Show

Standing Figure – 11" x 7" (28 x 17.8 cm) – Silverpoint on prepared Bristol

Hello Friends,

This is my first completed silverpoint drawing. It was finished last week Friday during my drawing class taught by Robert Liberace. I really love this medium, how line quality is so important to defining the form and values of the subject. It seems that silverpoint is very similar to pen and ink drawing and etchings in that once the line is laid down, it is pretty much there for eternity. Erasing silverpoint is possible but you risk messing up the tooth of the prepared paper, and also it will advance the tarnishing of the silver at a faster rate than it naturally oxidizes. A few spots where I touched up with an eraser and soften some lines have turned more red/green prior to the other areas, and it has only been five days since the drawing was finished.

Another value silverpoint has is the amazing deepness of value the delicate lines have, and this only gets better as the drawing ages. Robert had a few examples in class with some drawings that were only days old to over a year old, and the aged drawings had developed such a beautiful patina. I have never seen any of the old masters silverpoint drawings but I would expect they are fantastic.

By the way if you get a chance to visit the National Gallery of Art any time soon, they have a wonderful exhibit on French Drawings from their collection. I spent the most part of Monday in those rooms. Some of the highlights of the show was a Boullee architectural drawing, several beautiful figure drawings by Claude Lorrain, Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. I have been spending time in museums lately because it is not possible to stay home and work in the studio because of the construction noises going on at our apartment building.

So over the next several weeks, I will continue to be somewhat absent from posting to this blog because of all the interruptions caused by the construction repairs. So far it has been exceptionally noisy from around 9am to 4:00pm, but yesterday lasted well close to 5pm. I made the mistake of coming home around four yesterday only to leave again. We are frantically looking for a new place to move in order to escape these intrusions. Now I have another thing to occupy my time while out of the apartment during the day.

Thanks for stopping by,

Liz