Camera LucidaOctober 20, 2016

Last Saturday I attended a one day workshop on the Camera Lucida at the Manifest Drawing Center. It was very informative. The camera lucida is an old drawing device, consisting of a prism that projects what you see onto the horizontal surface of your paper. David Hockney wrote a book about this device titled, “Secret knowledge: Rediscovering the lost techniques of the Old Masters”.

Each participant received a camera lucida to work with and then take home. The facilitator, Pablo Garcia started a business manufacturing these new devices. He calls them NeoLucida.

It took me about fourteen drawings before I really felt like I had a handle on it. It is a great device for locating shapes in space. Below are the last three drawings that I created using the device – they are the only ones that looked good. We had a nude model to practice drawing with and that was a wonderful way to learn the device. These last drawings also were longer poses so I had more time to spend on them. After the sketches I have posted a photo of the NeoLucida.