Squinting at casts

These are some of the casts students study and draw at the famed Grand Central Atelier (GCA) where I am taking the summer Drawing Boot Camp. Started by Jacob Collin, GCA is singular in leading the revival of classical drawing and painting techniques lost when modernist painters rebelled against the past.

I am humbled and encouraged by these casts. They remind me that many of my heroes started in the same way — squinting at a cast trying to understand and then render the way light gives shape to form.