Cast Drawings and Paintings
A couple of weeks ago Elsie went on a head hunt and came back with two plaster cast heads…
Casts are a wonderful tool for drawing the human form and practicing the essential principles of shading and tonal value. It is a practice that has been used to teach drawing and painting since the 19th century, which focuses on mastering realism.
Drawing from the cast enables beginners to analyse shape and proportion, and to render the effects of light and shade without the complication of colour. It encourages a methodical approach from the start, and remains the best way to learn the ‘language’ of seeing.
“…The goal of learning how to paint a sculpture, reducing a complex three-dimensional object onto a two-dimensional surface while re-creating the illusion of depth and volume, helps us distill and master essential principles. The cast, usually depicting a full figure, or parts of the human form, provides an entrance-way into painting without the difficulties associated with working from life – as the cast is a completely stationary, uniformly colored object seen under consistent lighting conditions…”
- An excerpt from the book ‘Classical Painting Atelier’ by Juliette Aristides.
For all you studio members: if you come in and we’re not here, get one of the heads down and try the following:
Setting up:
- Place the cast head on a darker surface and background. If you choose to use drapery, secure it behind the cast and gather it as you feel fit.
- Direct a light source, window or lamp, in a visually pleasing manner on the cast and drapery.
- Pay careful attention to the tone of the background, value of the ground plane, and the shapes of the shadows that are cast upon the background or ground.
Creating your cast drawing/painting:
- Mark in the big measurements and overall proportions of the cast on your paper/canvas.
- Begin blocking in the large shadow shapes.
- Block in the shadows and drapery in the background. By opting not to concentrate on line, you will create a drawing/painting that more closely resembles what you actually see.
- After placing the overall tones in the shadows and surrounding environment, begin modeling the big forms of the lights.
- Next, work in the smaller forms within the context of the big shapes, working from dark to light.
- Finally, examine the edges of your forms. Some edges should be so soft that they are lost entirely, dissolving into adjacent forms, while others should be strong and sharp and there should be every variation in between.
