Working with optical scientist Charles Falco, the Hockney-Falco thesis inspired new conversations about the intertwined relationship between art and technology.

Yes definitely art, the OHP I referred to, – I originally used it for enlarging drawings or photographs as a method for transferring them to canvas or paper, it might not be red dust and little holes like they used in the renaissance, but I’m not sure its really any different in principle; perhaps I should have clarified what I said before – I’m definately not one of them that thinks its cheating! Set up the NeoLucida Plus to look at a printed image or a computer screen and make a hand-drawn copy! A side-note about “cheating”: I was surprised to find how many people accused Hockney of maligning the great western artists by suggesting they used tools to draw. Post-Kickstarter, they outsourced to China and rolled out NEOLUCIDA XL, which appeared to mimic our LUCY flex.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. My mission has always been to build the best drawing tool possible, inspired by the time-tested technologies of the old masters.

Herschel took his camera lucida with him as he traveled for King and country in the pursuit of scientific excellence.The result is a NeoLucida fit for beginners but with integrated accessories to advance your drawing skills.

Controversial new evidence shows the Old Masters used such optical aids, raising questions about the purity of art. Opting for a "prism on a stick" would have been cheaper, but that was a compromise I wasn't willing to make. Close friend William Henry Fox Talbot, not as talented a draughtsman, was disappointed in his experience. Today my drawing skills are non-existent, even my stickmen are deformed abominations that would make most shake their head.Using these tools is only cheating if, in your nearly divine reverence for these artists’ masterworks, you declare these works superhuman and unattainable by any mere mortal. The museum had recently acquired a preparatory drawing for the jewel of the collection: Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street; Rainy Day. If you can stabilize the NeoLucida Plus on a cafe table or portable easel, you can draw in cities, parks, or anywhere in nature! This double reflection (once at Number 1, then again at Number 2) means your ghost image is both right-side up and correct left-right. For those not familiar with these devices, a Camera Lucida was an optical prism drawing aid that allowed the user to superimpose a scene they intended to draw onto their paper/canvas, allowing them to trace the basic outline and form.

He won most of them because he had deep pockets and he underpaid his engineers so much because he knew they couldn’t afford the 10+years in court. Its form factor was different than the camera lucida, using an angled mirror eyepiece attached to a low-power astronomical telescope. It was when I had conversations with fellow artists about ways to get more people to join us in trying the tool that the idea of manufacturing a new camera lucida became the NeoLucida. Their travels, documented by Catherwood and his camera lucida and printed with fantastic detail, inspired new interest in Mayan culture and expeditions of Central America. These artists and scientists used the camera lucida to make accurate drawings of their world, from animal specimens to undiscovered ruins, in a time when drawing was one of the only ways to communicate visual information.

Curators and historians bristled at the suggestion that the great masters of western art “cheated” by using optical technologies in making their masterpieces. The camera lucida is a 19th century drawing aid, like a prism on a stick, that lets you trace whatever you see.