Cast drawing or anything else that requires a lot of shading to be done with a pencil is meaningless labor, it can be done in grisaille or any other medium that covers large spaces easier. It's as wrong as only using a #000 brush for doing the whole painting. Pencil should be used for doing line drawings. Understanding of shades has to be carried out with monochrome grisaille or in black and white and it's better to do with oils instead of torturing a student doing it with the pencil.
Rubik,
Thanks for the clarification. Yes, having students use a pencil for that is like making them scrub the floor with a toothbrush, a common practice in Army Basic Training as part of the sadistic practices that were popular when I was a young soldier, long ago. I have my students do their cast drawing studies on grey pastel paper with charcoal and chalk, and when they become pretty good at it, I have them do it in grisaille oils. A pencil is not the right tool for that kind of drawing.
Virgil
