Tripod Mount on a Drawing Board

[doug grosjean]

<p>Hi all,</p>

<p>I bought a camera lucida for drawing. Using a beam splitter, it superimposes a virtual image onto a sheet of drawing paper, so an artist can get a quick outline of a subject. Henry Fox Talbot, after struggling with using a camera lucida, began his chemistry experiements to figure out a way to etch and fix a light image, chemically.</p>

<p>It's not that bad. It works best if you already have art skills, and can draw quickly anyway. Sketching the outline using a camera lucida takes a couple minutes, during which time things can move, so it works best if it's fixured solidly just like a camera with a several minute exposure.</p>

<p>Which leads me to my question: I'd like to add a tripod socket to the back of my drawing board, so that I can use my tripod as an easel. Any ideas? I'm thinking there might be a socket or a plate out there with the proper thread, and then I'd bolt that to the back of the drawing board.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

<p>Am attaching a drawing that I created with the camera lucida yesterday. While it sure does help an artist to quickly get the general geometry of an object, and proper perspective, you still need art skills for proper shading to give the image texture and depth.</p><div></div>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>I thought about doing this years ago, using a tripod socket to mount a board to support my watercolor paper. I ended up getting an easel instead.</p>

<p>If I'd finished the project I planned to use a readily available tripod socket adapter. They cost about $10 or less. Drill a hole in the board and epoxy it in place.</p>

[doug grosjean]

<p>Sounds good, thanks.</p>

<p>An easel isn't practical with the camera lucida, because the drawing board needs to be horizontal.</p>

[GerrySiegel]

<p>Doug, not to rain on the parade, but....Every time in past when I tried to rig something kind of heavy, like ten pound and of large dimensions and not to wiggle much it usually wound up on the deck, kaput. Providence must have been trying to tell me something about ye tripodgeist as a platform for anything really heavy, large from the center point of the platform, or taking unbalanced pressure, like when drawing board pressured. Not to mention a cup of charcoal pencils on the side..<br /> Yep I know or have read and seen gizmos for tripods so they can be rigged to hold a laptop but you won't convince me that three legs can do it all IMHO. <br /> So what is sensible alternative. To hold stuff horizontally and securely.<br /> Well, I have one of these in the carport-don't use it much anymore but when I do it is essential, and it will do the job when I need something light and adjustable and sturdy and mostly reliable. Reliable as in the supported heavy object won't crash on my feet.<br>

Not a bad price as these things go. Aluminum with collets and folds flat. Mine has a carry handle too. Called a projector stand but I use if for other stuff, like TV monitor. Drawing platform, why not?<br>

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/14744-REG/Da_Lite_42067_425_Deluxe_Project_O_Stand_17_x.html</p>

<p>MIght still have to use a clamp or something to keep it from sliding around. But that should be doable.</p>

<p> </p>

[MichaelChang]

<p>Actually a surveyor's tripod is about as steady as I've ever come across, steady enough to mount a telescope with very short settling times to any external shock or vibration. It'll need some adaptation to make it usable for a drawing board.</p>

<p>Heavy duty telescope tripods are good too but more expensive (mine is similar - in stainless steel - but didn't cost nearly as much):<br>

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Celestron-Heavy-Duty-1100-Tripod/dp/B001FBO7IO">http://www.amazon.com/Celestron-Heavy-Duty-1100-Tripod/dp/B001FBO7IO</a></p>

[Charles_Webster]

<p>While it's not recommended as stable or wise, you can put a 1/4-20 tee-nut through a piece of 1/4" plywood and screw that to the back of your drawing board. Putting it through the back ensures that it won't pull out so easily.<br>

If you have a "pro" tripod that mounts the head on a 3/8-16 screw, that would be sturdier.</p>

<p><Chas><br /><br /></p>

[steve_mareno1]

<p>It's nice to see other artists here, and I love the idea of a camera lucida, but.......for me it would never work, and I would not recommend them. You cannot generate any life or freshness into your line by tracing a projected image. Trust me, I and a lot of others have tried. It just lies flat. Not your drawing per se. Any drawing. In fact, it's not a drawing, it's a tracing.</p>

<p>I do not like to draw (which for a painter is a fatal handicap unless addressed), BUT if I get the sketch pad out and start taking it with me everywhere, then I have no excuses not to draw. I'll usually start w/ something simple (forget about hands or feet), totally mess it up over and over, and after about a half hour things are improving nicely. In a few days/weeks I'm good to go, and ready to start a painting. Some people get it going in a much shorter time, but it always goes off if not practiced, just like a musician loses their chops if they don't practice. Drawing is a learned skill. I can teach anyone (anyone that's motivated that is) how to draw, but I can't teach any art. You either got that, or you don't. Art is one field where you can learn more from your failures then your successes.</p>

[GerrySiegel]

<blockquote>

<p>(anyone that's motivated that is)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>A life drawing class just might still do it for yours truly. Personal history: I took this elective sketching and painting course with no less than Andreas Feininger, in college sophomore year. And just when the second semester rolled around, and live model studies was on my list, boom I got hit with two required concentration courses that intersected. Fate took its shot. No permanent loss. I was a mediocre oil painter, worse watercolorist, just fair to middling sketcher. I had my shot at it and never got back to drawing. I suspect four years of high school mechanical drawing sapped my creative juices with pen and pencil, So here I be. No regrets. </p>

[sarah_fox]

<blockquote>

<p>While it's not recommended as stable or wise, you can put a 1/4-20 tee-nut through a piece of 1/4" plywood and screw that to the back of your drawing board. Putting it through the back ensures that it won't pull out so easily. If you have a "pro" tripod that mounts the head on a 3/8-16 screw, that would be sturdier.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That was my immediate thought as well. You can also replace the 1/4"-20 thread tripod screw with a longer 1/4"-20 screw. Then put a washer and wingnut on the other side. However, the tee-nut is a more elegant solution.</p>

<p>FAIW, I've mounted foam-core models of building structures to a tripod to rotate them in the light and estimate solar angles. Just a 1/4-20 screw with the washer and wing nut (tightened pretty tightly) was secure enough to hold a gangly model maybe 2' x 3' x 1' that weighed maybe a few pounds.</p>

<p> </p>

[Monophoto]

<p>I can think of two ways to do this.</p>

<p>1. Many years ago, I rigged a setup to allow a tripod to be used as a stand for a 35mm slide projector (some younger readers won't know what those were!). I used a piece of 1x12 pine board - attached a sheet of 1/4" aluminum plate to the bottom, and then drilled a hole that I tapped for a standard 1/4x20 tripod thread.</p>

<p>2. Almost any hardware store (including the big box guys) sell 1/4x20 "t-nuts". You could easily drill a hole in the center of your drawing board and install a t-nut that would allow you to mount the board on a tripod.<img src="http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/T-Nut-1XGJ1?gclid=CNj4r770v7UCFQSg4AodAhEA9A&cm_mmc=PPC:GooglePLA-_-Fasteners-_-Nuts-_-1XGJ1&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=1XGJ1&ef_id=ULOLHAAADk7k7jB0:20130218125824:s" alt="" /></p><div></div>

[alan_zinn]

<p>Gravity! Even a large tripod will shake with a <em>lucy</em>. Use a heavy board and a tall stool with a sandbag or bricks.</p>

[jeff_livacich]

<p>I assume that's not a self portrait...</p>

[doug grosjean]

<p>Thanks for responses. I think a T-nut into a piece of wood, and then c-clamp that wood to the drawing board, would get me where I want to go, cheaply. I'm going to try it, because of a strong desire to have the whole setup portable while on foot.</p>

<p>Steve Mareno: Agreed you don't create art with a camera lucida, any more than you create literature with MS Word. They're just tools. But the Lucy allows me to sketch with accurate proportions very quickly, which is all it's meant to do. It's still up to me to go from there with proper shading, composition, etc. I suspect that just as MS Word has repeatedly corrected certain chronic typos until I remembered to spell properly, the Lucy may correct some of my perspective / proportion errors, until I don't make them anymore.</p>

<p>My background is mechanical drafting and photography, plus college art and photo classes. I'm a skilled art student whether I use the Lucy or not. But when I really want perfect proportions, I use it. Quite a few 19th Century artists used them, and it's hard to argue that the work they produced was flat, and not art. Sir John Herschel used one in his travels, and to my eye at least, his sketches are art. Here's an example:</p>

<p><a href="http://cache4.asset-cache.net/gc/90735600-pencil-drawing-made-by-sir-john-herschel-in-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=X7WJLa88Cweo9HktRLaNXpAoR6JMmv1wdiZ6zM%2FdHNpkLrFmQstNISL5p6CVDYvBksCqOGtT9RnzAaOAeHlbPa4KC4SPYnvd2KPEViVzakE%3D">http://cache4.asset-cache.net/gc/90735600-pencil-drawing-made-by-sir-john-herschel-in-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=X7WJLa88Cweo9HktRLaNXpAoR6JMmv1wdiZ6zM%2FdHNpkLrFmQstNISL5p6CVDYvBksCqOGtT9RnzAaOAeHlbPa4KC4SPYnvd2KPEViVzakE%3D</a></p>

<p>Other beautiful Lucy drawings are geology drawings and drawings of canyons.</p>

<p>Most of my own life drawings and sketches have been generated on waterproof drawing pads using a space pen, while guiding a couple raft trips through the Grand Canyon. The sketches, done extremely quickly, end up as raw material when I return home. </p>

<p>With the sketches as raw material, I can illustrate things that were either not captured by camera (a wave sweeping 2 passengers off my raft, and the subsequent rescue - we were too busy for photos), or that for various reasons, can't be photographed well (low contrast fossils in dim light, or the swirl of underwater currents in rapids). I doubt any will any of the finished products will end up in art museums, but audiences seem to really enjoy them when they're used sparingly as part of a presentation on Grand Canyon whitewater. A typical example is attached. Drawing is based on a sketch done in Grand Canyon when water flow went down overnight, leaving one raft hanging from a tamarisk bush. No Lucy was used here.</p>

<p>Alan: thanks! I won't know if it's too wobbly or not until I try it, but I'll be watching for that issue. I think the people who use a Lucy most effectively are already good artists, and simply adapt to its issues.</p>

<p>Jeff Livacich: No, not a self-portrait. That wouldn't be very practical with a Lucy. When I have worked as a live model, well.... Being male, combined with 25 years of kayaking whitewater, and rowing, and bicycling; have resulted in me not looking remotely like the model in my original post.</p><div></div>