I am currently at work on what may end up being my last cast painting. At least the last one done under the eye of an instructor. It's not that I don't enjoy painting them, I do, and I feel like I've really learned a lot that has applied to all of the painting that I do. It's just that I've done quite a few of them now and it might be time to move on. So far I've painted the eye cast, ear, mouth, a satyr bust, a classical portrait bust and now I'm working on a lion statue that looks like it may have been done by Barye. I think what I'll probably do after the lion is to get some statues of my own and include them in a still life every now and again when the mood strikes me.
            A cast painting begins the same way that a cast drawing begins, with a block-in. The idea is to work large to small, from the inside out, using the "Bargue" straight line method. Even more so than with a drawing for pencil study, it's important to take the time to get it right. Once you're drawing is on a canvas, ready to paint, there's not too much that you can change. And make no mistake about it, you will see things that you missed, and you won't see them until you are ready to paint. That's just the way it works. You have to resist the temptation to start re-inventing your drawing after you begin painting or it will slip away from you like a greased pig. A slightly imperfect foundation is better than no foundation.
           Once I feel like my drawing is pretty much locked in than it's time to transfer it to a canvas. Some artists like to outline every major value change. I pretty much just indicate the core shadow line in as descriptive a way as I can so that I have a good indication of where the form will be turning from. Then I trace my drawing with tracing paper, flip it over and then trace it on the back with hard vine charcoal. I like the hard charcoal because I can sharpen it to a point and it doesn't slip around as much. Some of the artists at the Grand Central Academy of Art like to photocopy their drawings and then cover the entire copy with charcoal and use that to transfer their drawings. What I like about the tracing paper is that I can see through it to the canvas so if I want to change the placement slightly I'll be able to see it before making the transfer. The next step is to ink the drawing. I generally like to do it while referring to the actual cast so that I can regain some of the refinement that is sometimes lost when making a transfer.
         For most of my previous casts I would use a wipe out method. That's toning the canvas with an umber stain and then wiping out the light areas. Again, there are a lot of variations with this method. Some artists like to use a brush to pull out the lights and then will paint in darker details as well, rounding the form in a general way. My previous training at the Long Island Academy of Fine Art was to keep the wipe out fairly simple, get those major light and dark separations as a strong roadmap to keep you on track as you start to get into the details. Along the lines of the way the drawing started, working large to small. One of the things that I like to do after brushing on the thinned down umber is to take a Viva towel and give the canvas a very soft pass. This evens out the tone, removing those brush marks that would sometimes come back to haunt me. I can't take credit for this method though. I got the idea from watching one of my old studio mates, eighteen year old Hector do it, and I was so impressed that I've been doing it ever since. Apparently a young mind can teach an old dog a new trick.
          The method that I would then use to make the cast painting is often referred to as window shading. It's a finish as you go technique. Kind of like a map maker drawing a detailed topographical map as he walked along observing and noting everything within his path. It can be a little scary to leap into the void so to speak so one of the things that can help prevent you from losing your way is the poster study. It's not the Ted Seth Jacobs, Tony Ryder style of poster though. Their's is very abstract looking and if you didn't know what it was for you might not recognise the image at all. Their posters are used to get the overall tone and value-color harmonies established that will be used to key the painting. My poster is more of a simplifed, planar version of the setup, where I'm working hard to get each simplified plane to be exactly the right value that I need to successfully indicate it's position with regards to the light source. I want to be able to refer to my poster throughout the painting, so I take the time to get it right. Maybe poster isn't the right term. I guess it's more of a study in the classic sense of the word. When I mix up my value string, I will put little dabs of paint right on the study. This helps to keep the painting on track so it doesn't look piecemeal. I'm only working on my current cast three hours a week before I go to figure drawing class so it's important that I don't re-invent the wheel each time I begin. People seem amazed that I can progress at a pretty good rate, but it's really just the system that I'm using. Not having to worry about which values to use and how much of one color or another allows me to paint with confidence and stay on the form. As my instructor Nick always says when you can learn to really slow down you'll be amazed at how much faster things will go. Kind of a Zen thing or one of those Jedi mind tricks.
         Once my string is laid out on my palette, I'm ready to go. I will lay in my darks along the terminator line and then start roughly laying down small tiles of value that indicate the form turning toward the light. I'll do this pretty quickly. One of the things that I've learned is that you can't get anywhere pussyfooting around with paint. You have to get the paint down solidly and with confidence. You can always make adjustments, but if you start off thinly smushing paint around you'll quickly have no form left to adjust. I usually lay in an area that's about a square inch. I don't want to lay in more area than I will have time to completely bring to a finish. The form comes first. I ignore details and cracks etc; until I'm happy with what the larger forms are doing. Then I will go in with more paint to seam the tiles together. Once I'm satisfied with that look than I will start to dig a little deeper. Are there areas where the light seeps through and seemingly connects disparate forms? Are there smaller micro froms within the larger forms that have a slightly different angle to the light? Once all that's done than I start to look for significant details, but very often the processes that I just mentioned have painted the details for me without even trying and all I have to do is a little accenting here and there.
         Hopefully the above little essay has given some idea of why I found cast painting to be so rewarding and instructive. It has changed the way that I approach my paintings and it has helped me to conceptualize form and light in ways that previously were more intuitive but now are more analytical. I highly recommend it but like those daredevil reality shows I recommend that you don't try this alone at home but get the guidance of a good instructor.