Silverpoint!

Before Christmas I was hankering for a silverpoint tool. Well, my cousin Gainor took pity on me and sent me a small silver rod and three sheets of prepared paper. The package arrived today. I sanded the point down and stuck the rod in a mechanical pencil holder.

Your blackest black is never really very black, only gray, so the whole effect is quite washed out. But this is the tool of the Renaissance: no graphite yet. It’s a trip to sit at my kitchen counter and draw my thumbnail and muse on 500 years ago…