Drawing, Art & Technology

Pablo Garcia on the DIY Camera Lucida from Make: Volume: 89

Pablo Garcia, an associate professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, researches the history of drawing technologies. In Make Volume: 89, he writes about building your own “DIY Camera Lucida” (pages 54-59). It’s a gadget that lets you trace an image that is projected on paper. Pablo was a recent guest on a Make: Launch Party, discussing his article as well as art and technology. He demonstrated his own use of the camera lucida.

Using a camera lucida to draw an image of a skull

This technology was used from 1807 until the 1860s before it was replaced by photography, but it also directly led to the invention of photography, according to a story told by Garcia about Sir John Herschel and Willian Henry Fox Talbot. Apart from its use in art, the camera lucida had many practical applications such as for drawing urban scenes and western landscapes, allowing those who were not graphic artists to render faithful drawings of what they saw.

I bet you’ll enjoy learning more about camera lucida from Pablo Garcia in the video below.

See his websites for a history of drawing machines at drawingmachines.org and his own art at pablogarcia.org.