History of Cast Drawings
Drawing plaster casts is a basic subject in visual arts schools including illustration, painting, sculpture, and architecture.
As early as the Renaissance, art academies used plaster casts of ancient Greek and Roman statues as research tools for their art students. Farnese Hercules, Venus de Milo, Apollo, Laocoön, Gladiator Borghese, Belvedere Torso, and Farnese Hermes are the sculptures that were used as sources.
By the 19th century, plaster casts became popular in museums and academies as an educational tool, and studying ones became part of a standardized art curriculum. Various plaster casts taken from Renaissance sculptures are also added to the curriculum. Parts of Michelangelo’s sculptures such as David’s hands, feet, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, and head are the best examples.
How are plaster casts made?
The Plaster Casts are created by using gypsum powder dissolved in water in a ratio of 1.8:1. Then pour this mixture into the casting mold, and remove the mold when the mixture hardens. The material of the mold can be silicon, cement, or even plaster. Silicone molds can be reused after thousands of product castings, while plaster molds can only be used once.
Why you should draw Cast Drawings
Easy to observe and analyze
Plaster casts are monochromatic white, their surface is smooth, clean, and clear making it easier to study light, value, and form. The Students easily analyze 3 basic values: Light, Mid-tone, and dark. Unlike the live model, the plaster casts are always motionless, which makes it easy for students to observe and analyze the object’s gestures.
The form of plaster casts is generalized, idealized by the masters of the past. Students will be approached and familiarized with human proportions and anatomy
Enhance the perception of idealized beauty.
In addition, most of the realistic plaster casts are copies of the classic sculptures of the art masters of the past. They are perfect in proportion and structurally tight with unique shapes and great artistic appeal. When learning to draw plaster casts, students can feel the beauty and at the same time understand the creative intentions and artistic processing skills of the classical masters.
Draw plaster cast is pre-stage of life drawing model
Drawing plaster casts allows people to understand the features, anatomy, and locations of the face as well as the whole body; the proportions between their parts. Students will not be confused when drawing living models in the future.
In Conclusion: What Is the Purpose of Cast drawing?
In short, learning to draw plaster casts is a basic lesson in art schools, the purpose of learning to draw plaster casts is to exercise the artist’s observation, thinking, and hand-drawing skills.Â
Provides students with the ability to analyze shape, perspective, scale, 3-D space, structure, composition, and anatomy. Besides, helping them constantly improve their ability to appreciate the beauty of nature.
Beautiful Plaster casts drawing in Pencil
