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Camera lucida
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Posted
I read hockneys book, secrets of the old masters.
It's worth a read but in a nutshell he theorisises that many of the great artists of the past used these little devices (or the camera obscuras) as an aid to their drawing (and painting).
Now there is a modern device available called the neo lucida for around £30, would you class using one of these as "cheating" or is it no different to using tracing paper, photos or a projector to help you get the right proportions in the preliminary stages of a drawing?
Posted
Im no artist, but... Just looked at a youtube video and it looks quite a nice bit of kit.
I spend a fair bit of time sending and receiving Morse code, which I decode by ear. A friend of mine really struggles with this so he started using a machine to help him decode it, though he still sends manually. He asked me many times whether I thought it was cheating: I said, do you enjoy it? He replied that he did, because it meant he could now partake in many of the events and activities which were previously beyond him. I said, fine, then do it. It's meant to be fun.
As I said, I am no artist, but my answer to you would be the same. For me it would be uncomfortable because my joy in life is to see the limits of my own created body...but I dont run to work whilst I have a car, nor do I shout when I should use the phone, so go figure than one!
Enjoy!
David
Posted
There is no such thing as cheating unless. of course you are copying the work of others and passing it off as yours. Use whatever aid you want and remember the masters did exactly that using whatever aids were available to them at the time. Do you enjoy what you do? That's all that matters and if others enjoy it as well then that's a bonus.
Posted
No, it's not cheating - there are things about which i'm less sure, eg projectors helping you to sketch a face, for instance; but even there .... well, I wouldn't do it myself, it's likely to produce far too laborious a line and I suspect that would be obvious; but a camera obscura to help you get the perspective right - well why not?
One thing always to be remembered about these old masters - they were producing work to order, as professional artisans; not indulging in a hobby or pastime - if they were commissioned to produce a scene, it had to be about right - not necessarily minutely accurate, but accurate enough to represent the subject required. I doubt that they even thought in terms of "cheating", these were just some of the tools required to do the job, and nobody's business but theirs. Given the large scale on which they were often working, too, a measure of assistance in gauging angles and perspective lines, in highly complex scenes, was probably necessary.
This doesn't mean that they would invariably have used them, I imagine - any more than you'd always use a Mahl stick/maul stick, viewfinder, Claude glass or whatever, but if your living depended on giving the punters what they wanted, or you didn't eat - you'd use whatever helped.
Posted
A very gray area and I agree and see exactly what Robert means re Professional Artisans. " Get it right or starve" . Personally I dont want to use anything more than my eye, my thumb and my experience.
So I suppose I do think it's a form of cheating . But quite honestly who cares, get on with it and if you are happy with the way you produce your work what does it matter what anyone else thinks.
Posted
I don't know what this gadget does, from the gist of things it's a help with perspective. I honestly just don't know if it's cheating or not but as has already been said, who gives a damn.
My only concern with these aids is that the artist must not ignor the fundamental principles of drawing, say perspective, shadows, reflections, understanding vanishing points etc, I do think it's both useful and in my book necessary to have at least some understanding of these principles, and I suppose as such, this gadget would not be needed anyway.
To sum up, go for it, but learn from it also, and one day with any luck you will put it in the drawer and forget about it.
Posted
Hi TB, Fom your description I recognised a gadget that I tried out decades ago. It required you to see an image of the subject on your paper by way of a sheet of transparent plastic held vertical between your paper on one side and the subject on the other. I found it impossible to get my head round using it and I gave up. I later bought a projector (or diascope?) to project an image of my photo on to my paper which worked in so far as gettin the main proportions and perspective right and if a building , where the windows were. As for any other details ,i didnt use the diascope/projector which I may add was difficult to use as it did not have a stand to hold it to shine down on my paper . I had to stick my paper to a wall and use the thing shining horizontally ,projecting the photo image to,the paper onthe wall. It was not cheap and i should have bought the much dearer one which had a stand but it cost an arm and a leg so I didnt speculate......Syd
Posted
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amat/the-lucy-drawing-tool-most-versatile-camera-lucida
For your information... I received this video/ad by email today; there's a demonstration of it in use which in itself prejudices me against the whole damn' thing, but see what you think.