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Low-Tech, Old School Way of Making Art

Low-Tech, Old School Way of Making Art

The old-school way of making art - flat features and babies that are shrunken adults.

The old-school way of making art – flat features and babies that are shrunken adults.

One thing you observe when looking through art history, is that a lot of art looked the same – for centuries, as they were making art the only way they knew how – then BOOM. An explosion of depth in paintings. Up through the Byzantine era, most artwork looked flat. Very rarely would you see the side profile of a person. Most art had a religious theme because only the church, royalty, and the rich could afford to commission an artist to make art. Whenever you see a baby in paintings pre-dating the renaissance, they look like shrunken adults, not babies.

The explosion of depth in Renaissance painting

Artwork that we often categorize as some of the most recognizable of the renaissance period predates the known existence of the Camera Obscura and the Camera Lucida by over a century, but it has been theorized that the most well-known artists of the period were using a type of Camera Obscura or Camera Lucida to achieve depth and appropriate ratios of arms and heads to body sizes. Seemingly overnight, we start to see artwork like this:

Artemisia Gentileschi - Judith slaying Holofernes

Finally, a geek article that lets me share one of my favorite renaissance paintings. 🙂 Artemisia Gentileschi was a unicorn – one of the very few female renaissance painters – and quite the master of the craft. Notice how the art here looks like a photo or a movie scene. Light moves around the contours of the arms and faces. Granted – there was amazing skill involved – but how did artists of this time suddenly have the ability to see these details?

Enter the Camera Lucida

The old-school Camera Lucida

The old-school Camera Lucida

Artist Pablo Garcia wants to help artists around the world by bringing back an old-school technique of making art. The Camera Lucida. Long before the invention of photography, these ‘cameras’ allowed artists to see a reflection of their subject projected onto their canvas. Some today would call this “tracing” or “cheating,” but having tools at your disposal does not suddenly transform you into a talented artist. Just as the discovery of new pigments gave artists new colors to use in their palettes was not cheating – this is not cheating. It’s a tool. And a pretty freakin’ awesome tool at that.

Garcia, professor at School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), successfully funded a Kickstarter campaign a while back with a modern rendition of the old-school Camera Lucida. Now he’s back with a newer and bigger version – the NeoLucida XL. He’s passionate about this tool and wants more of these to be made for art students to use. Larger viewing area means less hunching and squinting on the part of the artist. A lot of thought went into its redesign.

There’s still time to back this project

At the time I’m writing this blog post, there are about 4 weeks left to back this project on Kickstarter. You can still get your hands on your very own NeoLucida XL. You can check out Garcia’s Kickstarter page, follow his personal website, follow him on Twitter, follow him on Instagram, follow the NeoLucida on Twitter, or check out the NeoLucida on Facebook.

NeoLucidaXL in use

Here’s the NeoLucida XL in use.

Tap Your Way to the Great American Novel

Tap Your Way to the Great American Novel, Bluetooth Retro Style

Tap Out the Great American NovelThere is a reason why there is a romance with older geeks and the old ‘clicky’ keys of the late 80’s. We need feedback. Tactile and auditory feedback. That’s our world since birth. Our eyes might get a tickle, but when we reach out for a thing, we need to feel it. Glass touch screens feel great when swiping left and right or up and down – but it leaves a person wanting. I love getting the haptic feedback on my Apple Watch and on my iPhone. It’s confirmation that it reads my input. Call me insecure – I need that. 🙂

More and more people are abandoning the notion of getting a laptop for the cheaper option of a tablet. For coders, this seems nutty at times – because we NEED to have our keyboards and multiple screens and multiple apps. What if you’re away from your desk when you realize there’s some code editing you need to do and all you have is your iPad? You can go to your GitHub repository or go to CodePen – but having to tap out code (or that great American novel you’ve been telling everyone you’re going to write) on a flat piece of glass just isn’t working. There’s no tactile feedback of the actual keys – so you have to keep looking and correcting.

You’ve got choices, but they’re not all ‘clicky’

There are TONS of bluetooth keyboards to choose from – some are full-size, solar powered and fairly decent – but still lacking what our parents and grandparents grew up with – the feel of mechanical, ‘clicky’ typewriter keys. Yeah, buddy!

Enter Penna. El Retron, a company created by James Hughes, has launched a Kickstarter Campaign to get Penna off the ground. Penna has already tripled its funding goal with nearly a month left on the campaign. Penna features Cherry Key Switches – the gold standard of the very pricey and well-loved gaming keyboards for their clicky sounds, amazing feel, and key-click accuracy and zero-latency responsiveness.

This is not just a flat keyboard with ‘clicky’ keys – this has stair step ergonomics to make keyboarding easier to do by touch. Imagine keyboarding while gazing out a window, at your screen or at your cat – but without having to gaze at your keys!

Just over three weeks to go to get this deal

As of this writing, there are still some earlybird options for just $89 for the basic Penna. This is in step with a lot of high end bluetooth keyboards – and when you see the attention to detail put into this set-up, you realize what a bargain that is. I’d love to get my hands on one of these – but I’m sadly over my crowdfunding budget for the month after backing the Populele on Indiegogo. 🙂 Oops.

The keyboard has a generous slot for inserting your phone or even large tablet – more elegantly designed than any I’ve seen. And guess what, Superfans! – You don’t have to use it with a smartdevice – you can use it with your bluetooth-capable desktop computer as well. It’s not just functional, but an elegant conversation piece as well. Think of how gorgeous this keyboard will look in front of an iMac. Even better news – the battery lasts for 6 months.

If you want to really push the envelope on retro – Penna comes in a delectable wood version as well, but you’ll have to pay the tree spirits an extra Benjamin for that privilege.

You can check out the Kickstarter Campaign for Penna, check out the El Retron website, or check them out on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.