One problem I have with drawing objects at some distance and using pen to draw details such as roof tiles is that the pen is too “strong” and makes the drawing look cartoony. One solution I came across is to use metalpoint to draw fine lines at any desired tone. In addition, painting watercolor on top of a metalpoint line doesn’t smudge the line. This also means that a metalpoint sketch with all the tones can be painted over with watercolor, and the colors will catch some of the sketched tones.

What is metalpoint? It is a technique of drawing with metal (e.g., Smartphone stylus, safety pin, paperclip) on specially prepared paper. By itself, a paperclip will not leave a mark. But when paper is treated with a primer such as gesso, a light touch on the abrasive surface will rip some metal onto the paper resulting in gray lines. Repeated lining or using heavy pressure will create darker lines and achieve a large range of tones. It is like using pencils, but with metal instead of graphite. Any metal will leave a mark, but the most popular are pure silver and gold.

Metalpoint has a noble history. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) drew in silverpoint. His tool consisted of bone tipped with pure silver. The graphite pencil was invented in 1564, and its modern form dates from the 18th century; the original lead pencil used real lead. But lead is too soft. Silver was the most popular because it left dark, warm lines that when tarnished turned a beautiful sepia. Copper also leaves dark lines, but they tarnish unpredictably to red or green, which is not very nice. Gold does not tarnish; the gold color reflects at the right angle of light.

One reason metalpoint declined is that the drawing surface had to be primed. Priming was accomplished by coating paper with a mixture of ground animal bone, gum arabica, water, and components like zinc oxide or pigments. Priming today can be easily done using gesso, a cheap and readily-available primer used for oils and acrylics. Because gesso is water-based, thin paper buckles. A more expensive alternative is silverpoint ground, which has the advantage of also being available as a colorless fluid.

Metalpoint lines are much harder to erase than pencil. But since they don’t smudge one can draw without having to protect the sketch from the palms. Washing with ink or watercolor will not cause the metal particles to float away as with graphite. The lines do fade over time. Da Vinci’s images are very faint to the naked eye, but the lines burst into view when viewed under ultraviolet light.

For samples on what metalpoint can accomplish I suggest the works of the Australian artist Gordon Hanley. He makes photorealistic drawings in gold and silverpoint. The drawing instrument consists of a standard clutch pencil (a kind of mechanical pencil) using a metal wire filed to a point. The wire doesn’t have to be sharpened again and will last for years because an extremely minute amount of metal is deposited on the paper. I was impressed by the dark tones possible with silverpoint.

Hanley’s photorealistic drawings are awesome, but it takes a lot of patience to make them. He puts in 10 hours of work everyday for 6 days, and 8 on Sundays. At this point I’m more interested in metalpoint as a support for watercolor. The drawing above was made on paper prepared with white gesso. All the outlines and most of the tones on the house, trees, and grass were drawn using the metal tip of a smartphone stylus, which I think is tungsten. The tiles and wooden planks making up the house were done with the stylus with some texture coming from the gesso itself. Other tones were achieved using the bent part of a steel paperclip. I then painted over using watercolor, taking advantage of the metalpoint tones and then adding some. I then darkened some of the lines and tones with my stylus, and then used white Liquid Paper correction fluid to add some accents. I found it hard to achieve dark tones with stylus or paperclip, so I’m now looking for some decent silver wire. An old silver teaspoon will also do.

The gesso is worth exploring for pure watercolor work because water behaves differently on gesso than on paper. One may apply gesso only in parts of the paper where texture is desired. Gesso also comes in black, but I have no use for that right now.