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Editing
Valerie,
I am not an atelier trained artist either, when I went to art school I was unaware such things existed. My school was unfortunately dedicated to abstract expressionism.
What, and I can only assume, was the purpose of drawing from the casts, is besides a knowledge of form is the fine art of editing. The arists who made the original sculptures for these casts had learned form but had also learned the more subtle arts of refinement. In other words they distilled what they saw, simplifying and embellishing the raw material in front of them. Perhaps there were too many neck creases etc., the face needed to have its forms simplified and so on. They were designing what was in front of them according to their eyes was aesthetic or mirrored their point of view, not just slavishly rendering every wart and pore.
This is the same principle that needs to be addressed in photo-realism. Photo-realism does not mean copying every minutiae, it means adding your own spin on things.
I would check out Ingres drawings to study.
In your picture in particular, as other have pointed out it means simplfying forms, emphasizing some and eliminating anything that distracts or is not necessary to your statement.
Sincerely,
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