At last a DVD demonstrating SIGHT-SIZE TECHNIQUE.  Review by G M Ackerman

Cast Drawing: Materials and Sight-Size Technique. Classical Ventures, DVD, 2:30 minutes. Ca $89.00.  Order at www.classicalventures.com

The DVD is useful, most of it easily comprehensible, every word clearly spoken, and should help many people interested in sight-size. 

On the other hand, it is presented so soberly, with neither enthusiasm nor excitement that it might discourage some others. 

The DVD instruction is in two parts: the first on materials, very good, especially the use of charcoal; the second on sight-size itself. Even though I watched the two segments separately, I had trouble—despite my professional interest—in keeping awake, especially in the very long second segment.  There is excitement in sight-size cast drawing; I remember the gratification and pride I felt as I realized, bit by bit, how what the method was teaching me; and especially my joy at the moments when everything came together, before my eyes, as I made certain steps—like filling in the shadow areas that transformed my drawing, and the sheer pleasure of final refining of the practically finished drawing. 

Only one camera is used in the filming, on the right of the artist, so that one can watch him at work; that unfortunately catches the cast at a very different angle than the paper he works on, which is also slightly distorted.  Very seldom are we permitted to see the cast and drawing side-by side without distortion; and that is a pity, for very often the artist moves to the cast and points out a feature or effect he is trying to catch and recreate in his drawing, but, because of the angle from which the cast is seen, the viewer cannot see what he is pointing at. Frustrating; and seeing what he was pointing out would have put some excitement into the shots as he drew.

To my surprise the method exists in more than one version.  I learned one from Charles Cecil and Daniel Graves when they taught together in Florence in the eighties. Cecil, a student of Gammell used Gammell’s term “bedbug line” for the shadow line; so did the artist narrator on the disk, who also uses the term “bedbugline.”  But his method differs from that of Cecil and Graves.  Now I know that everyone thinks that the method he learned from his teacher is the best and truest method, and as a student of Graves and Cecil, I will self-consciously try to temper my reactions. 

Both versions start out with measuring and placing outline points for the outline of the head on the paper.  This is done with the sight-size method: the cast and paper beside each other, and the artist studying the cast from a fixed standing position, from which he steps forward and places his mark on the paper from memory.

The artist on the Classical Ventures DVD first makes on the paper the marks for the outline of the plaster head, and for the thrown shadow of the head as well.   [The plaster is the head of the in Michelangelo’s Pietŕ in Saint Peter’s in the Vatican.]  When enough pints have been made, they are joined with straights. Then an area on the statue where a highlight, a half-tone and a full shadow meet is chosen, and developed on the drawing into a sort of value touchstone for the whole drawing, a large area of each being filled in with the proper value.  Next the major shadows are filled in, with corrections to the outline and with the sketching in of some of the features of the face and drapery. The outline is corrected as one goes along. And various slow steps of refinement follow.

The Graves-Cecil method that I was taught proceeds after the dots demarking the outline are placed and rejoined to the refinement of the outline; the straights are turned, very carefully, into curves. This takes some time—several sessions over a few days; a lot of measuring and correcting: the measuring always made from the fixed standing spot, and the worked on the paper from memory.  The outline may have to be corrected all around several times before it seems correct; then one is permitted (by the instructor) to draw in the shadow lines. This always causes more adjustments to the outline, but also permits the placing of indications of some of the features of the face: eyes, nose, mouth, etc. which sometimes fit like jig-saw pieces into the shadow lines.  Then, by permission again, one is allowed to fill in the shadow in one monotone black: when the darks are all in place, something magical happens,  the head takes on solidity and three-dimensional shape.  After this the surrounding black of the shadow box is filled in, to help in calculating  the gradation of the half tones of the cast. 

The difference in the results of the two systems seems noticeable to me.  The Graves-Cecil version simply has a better shape; both Graves and Cecil put great emphasis on drawing; and the outline is the most important part of the drawing of a figure. This kept the shape solid and correct through all the refinements, even of the outline which were usually minute.  It also got the artist more quickly to the period of refinement, which does not seem like work; it is delightful.  The disadvantage is that some students get mesmerized by the shadow shapes faceting the face, and seem to be afraid to, or unable to make soft transitions between separate values. [I think this is how the young Picasso got hung up, and turned the method inside-out into Cubism.]

The disadvantage of the disk version of the method is that the outline of the head, never refined of over-simplifications and inelegancies seems to be frozen rather early as the work proceeds around it.  And even the finished version of the Madonna’s head, after hours and hours of refinement, still remained a bit lumpish, and uncomfortably “off.”

The cast drawings supervised by Graves and Cecil in their classes usually had a better over-all shape, more vitality, and an elegant, logical locking together of features than in the finished charcoal Madonna’s head on the DVD—others from the studio may have come out better. At any rate, the Classical Ventures disk is a better way to learn sight-size technique alone, better than from any written instructions.

One learns great and important skills from sight-size cast drawing: accurate foreshortening becomes natural; it gets you to think of the head or body as a whole, and to continually judge one part of the head or body against the other. The much needed patience of a painter is instilled, of course, and so is a gut feeling for accuracy.  Continual study of the model and self-criticism of one’s drawing makes high values seem natural, almost inborn, and continual correction becomes a life-long habit.  This stops any tendency to cheat by leaving less important areas unfinished, or thinking an unsolved difficult passage is “good enough to pass,” and leaving it.  Learning to think of values as abstractions (all in grisaille) is the prelude to thinking of them in color: great eye-training. All these habits and lessons add up to not quitting drawings before they are complete. In the end you will make drawings that satisfy high standards, solid figures and heads without errors.  And of course learning sight-size techniques is good preparation for painting from the figure.  I think too that it dismisses the problem some artists have with trying to figure out where to start, by making you study the whole head or figure from the start. If you’re having trouble with my instructions in the back of the Bargue-Gérôme Drawing Course, this DVD should solve some of your problems.  And if you cannot find a school or an artist teach you the technique, this Classic Ventures disk is a great help.  The introduction on materials is excellent, especially the section on the use of charcoal which could stop bad habits before they are formed.