"Vinnie De Milo": On Drawing Casts

Prior to the advent of modern art, the great art academies in Europe, (and those schools in America who modeled themselves on the European academies) typically required students to take classes in cast drawing before moving on to drawing from the live model. A "cast" is a plaster figure of various aspects of human figures: heads, hands, feet, torsos, whole bodies, and even the separate features, (eye, nose, mouth, ear). Students would draw from the casts, illuminated under dramatic lighting to accentuate the shadow shapes and highlighted areas of the object, the more clearly to reveal the form under observation. Students would not be permitted to move on to drawing from the live model until they had developed acceptable perceptual and drawing skill to render accurate drawings of from the casts. Thus, by definition, every student in the life drawing class had developed and demonstrated great facility in close observation and accurate rendering on paper of three dimensional objects. Cast drawing came to be disdained as "modern art" appeared, (beginning with the Impressionists in France), and young students came to find cast drawing dull and stifling, (notwithstanding their efficacy as tools for developing acute skill in rendering three dimensional forms accurately). In recent years, a vogue has developed of young artists seeking out art schools and ateliers* teaching the "antique" skills of representational drawing, including classes in cast drawing. *(Ateliers are small artist-run studios where students learn under close tutelage, often by one or a few artists who run the atelier. The teaching is in the mode of master/apprentice training.) I took life drawing classes at the Art Students League of New York for nearly 30 years. The League teaches classes in traditional figure drawing and painting, as well as sculpting, but it also includes many classes in abstract and non-representational art. It was founded in the 19th Century by art students in New York who rejected the traditional teaching style modeled on the European academies. I generally only drew from the models, but there were rare occasions where either the model was late arriving or I was uninterested in drawing the model for some reason. On a couple of such occasions I drew from the (somewhat larger than life size and very dusty) full-figure drawing cast that had been a fixture in the studio for decades, probably as far back as the League's 19th Century founding. I have posted two of those drawings here: a frontal view and a rear view. I did not attempt to draw them with the close attention and exacting fidelity that was expected of students in cast drawing classes. Such drawings required hours (spanning days) of slow and deliberate drawing by the students. (And, frankly, I have not developed the skills necessary to produce such finished "academic" cast drawings.) I did these both rather swiftly, probably no longer than 30 minutes on either drawing. I used charcoal to draw the frontal view and a pencil to draw the rear view.

Reclining Woman

This is a 15 minute sketch of a clothed model. After drawing literally thousands of nudes, it is really tons o' fun to draw from the clothed, or "draped" figure. I can't recall if this was drawn in one of the drawing classes I attended at the Art Students League of NY, or if it was was drawn in a private sketch session. I and a group of students at the League would periodically hire models from the League to pose for us in private sessions held in a rotating series of sketch members' apartments. (I'm sure there were other students not part of our group who were doing the same thing.) Typically, in the private sessions the models would pose nude, as they did at the League. This leads me to think this was drawn at the League, but in a circumstance where the paid model was tardy and a student would volunteer (or be asked) to pose until the model arrived. This was extremely rare, but I can recall it occurring at least a couple of times. In any case, this quick sketch is among those drawings I am most pleased with out of tens of thousands of drawings (from nearly 30 years of life drawing). I would love to return to life drawing, but there is no easy access to life classes in my current location.

aCiD tRiP dRaWiNg

This is an interruption of my plans to post more of my life drawings. The title of this post and the comment scribbled on the image is...'nuff said!

Life Drawing, continued.

Here are more one minute poses, although I believe the first page of the male model may be five minute poses...though I'm not certain. They could also be one minute poses. I'll be posting more one minute drawings throughout, as I find those to be the most satisfying to me...in the ones where I am happy with how I captured the action. I will, also, post some longer, more finished drawings in future supplments.

Life Drawing

I spent clost to 30 years taking life drawing classes at The Art Students League of NY, a wonderful institution open to all who wish to take classes in drawing, painting, sculpturing, printmaking, etc. In its nearly 150 years' exitence, many renowned commercial and fine artists have taught and studied there, from Norman Rockwell to Jackson Pollock and countless more. I will begin posting here and in following posts a small selection of the mere fraction I kept of the tens of thousands of drawings I drew in my years there. These first few are all one minute sketches, which trains the artist in quickly seeing and capturing the action of the model. I will post some more finished drawings in future posts.

Self Portrait(s)

I said below I had not drawn a self-portrait of myself since shaving my beard 14 years ago. I overlooked this most recent drawing, made a few months ago. This is a portrait of myself and my wife Joanne, which I drew to appear on our Thank You cards to our friends and family. We were "made into one" six months ago, in April 2019. Joanne and I met 17 years ago and became great friends. Who knew I would end up marrying my best friend? We have a blended family, with our beloved Sophie making it complete.

Self-Portrait 3

This is the very first self-portrait I ever made, as described in the preceding post. I was 24. In retrospect, given how little "serious" drawing I had ever done at this time, (as opposed to bad cartoon drawings), I am surprised at how well-done it appears to me. There are some issues with proportion. I'm not sure if there's too much forehead or too little jaw...it's possibly both! This shows one characteristic of my drawing that remains consistent to this day: I draw linearly, rather than tonally, (which involves depicting the form through its masses, built up by broad, painterly use of charcoal, pastel, or soft pencil). This was drawn with a fairly hard pencil, 4F. The harder the pencil, the longer the point remains sharp, and the less the graphite smears. A drawing teacher I had once said that most artists tend naturally toward depicting form by one means or the other: through line or tone. She recommended that we practice drawing in whichever manner was NOT natural to us, in order to expand our ways of seeing and drawing. Good advice, which I have not put into practice nearly enough.