Libensky/Brychtova Casting Techniqu

Libensky/Brychtova Casting Technique
Pilchuck 1986
Introduction
This section contains the notes as written by Ana Thiel at Pilchuck during a Libensky/Brychtova session and are included in this book with the permission of Ana and the Libensky's. My personal feeling is that Prof. Libensky’s philosophy about the making of art is insightful and can be easily understood by all. His outline below on the Importance of Drawing and Composition is brilliant. His ideas are direct, clear, and fundamental to how one translates nature to creation.
If you read this chapter carefully, you will get some excellent tips on casting as well as an overview of Libensky's philosophy.
Presentation
The three principles of their work evolve first from drawing, then from transposing the drawings into clay models, and then finally transposing them to glass. Drawing is the single most important aspect of this design philosophy.
Overview
Importance of drawing, composition, and their relationship to glass.
Three-dimensional composition of drawing into clay:
• For transposition into glass.
• For problem solving in composition using clay or other materials.
Basic practice in mold-making for melting technique.
Melting glass in the mold and the relative time span used in melting and annealing the glass.
Glass cutting and its relationship to the final composition.
Importance of Drawing, Composition, and their Relationship to Glass
It is highly recommended to draw from nature in a large and a small scale. In a large scale, such as a landscape, one should take care to emphasize the different visual planes such as foreground and background.
In a small scale, we truly learn to see what is there; the play of volume and intersection, such as a branch intersecting a tree trunk, becomes the focus of interest. The human body is a figure of known proportions; for that reason, drawing it helps to train the eye and hand in the relationship of parts to the whole.
These drawings and studies can then be translated into reliefs and shapes in a more abstract form that still retain the original meaning and that remain recognizable.
Geometric volumes can also be studied by drawing, intersecting, cutting, or adding to them.
The key is to remember and discover simplicity in the lines and in the overall composition.
When a design has been selected* the drawing should be made to scale, especially when the piece will fit in a given architectural place or when it is formed of various parts.
The Libensky/Brychtova basement studio for painting and drawing. In the background are Stanislav's gouache paintings. Eventually Jaroslava will translate those paintings into clay models. One of those models can be seen in photo #