Silverpoint Head with Highlighting

6" x 8", Silverpoint on prepared, grounded

hotpress watercolor paper,

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This is a silverpoint drawing, it was drawn

on a piece of paper that I prepared with a

ground made of a small amount of Liquitex

gesso mixed with a small amount of white

Gouache paint and then colored with cyan

and green watercolor paint. The ground is

applied with a wide, soft watercolor brush

and allowed to dry. It can be sanded if

it is too rough. You can also use straight

gesso, casein, or gouache as grounds. The

problem with gouache is that it remains

reactive to water.

It is easy to do a silverpoint drawing. All

you need is an architect's technical lead holder,

a piece of 18 guage silver wire, some masking

tape, and some very fine sand paper. You cut

a piece of silver wire about one inch long, and

wrap some tape around it so it won't wiggle

around in the lead holder. Then you place it

in the lead holder and retract the metal
"petals" that hold the lead in, and make sure

the silver doesn't wiggle.

Then, you sand the point until it is round.

This is very important, so that you won't just

rip lines in the ground. The abrasive ground

causes a little bit of silver to come off of the

wire each time you make a stroke, and

voila, you have a silverpoint drawing.

The highlighting was done with a very fine

#00 round liner-type watercolor brush and

some white gouache (often referred to as

"body color" in descriptions of old drawings).

This is really fun. You ought to try it. The silver

will oxidize over time, turning browner. If you

paint some egg yolk over it lightly, this will

accelerate the oxidation.

Thanks for visiting today.