Arch illustration - hints and tips please!

[chiz]

'Soul' can sound a bit airy fairy when used about a technical drawing, but I'm glad others see what I was getting at; in reply to Unit of One: cameras steal your artefacts soul, but rotrings give it expression! Although recently there have been some great advances in using a combination of ink, computer and camera to bring artefacts to life.

And I totally agree with Kevin that too much use of colour can look terrible and totally counter-productive, but a little colour can certainly help, especially with complex site illustrations. Its just how to use it: the London tube map has loads of different colours, but is well designed and laid out, its not the colours that makes it a design icon. Colour won't save a cluttered or confused elevation or trench plan, a good eye will.

oh, and other top tip for you, since we already know you are a butterfingers: don't drop the artefacts!

[Unitof1]

bring artefacts to life! Which reminds me, off to look at redundant churches tomorrow.

I once thought that it would be interesting to consider what proportion of handaxes were made from natural flake blanks and thought one way was to look through site reports and work a trend from the illustrations. About half a day later I realised that the illustrations were not fit for my purpose. At the time of my travels in the Palaeolithic I came across the odd phd who were trawling thought the collections collecting information on various attributes and recording the information on simple sketches or pro-forma diagrammatics. As far as I could see these were archaeologists and they were producing archaeological illustrations. I imagine today they would be using their phone cameras. Basically I think that an archaeological illustration must have a purpose and not the if I put an illustration in my report it makes it look like I is a archaeologist, more like and antiquarian, particularly if it’s a recommendation from a curator or a specialist for some item found on a watching brief, oh sorry, an archaeological monitoring.

There was a time when being proficient in a vector computer package like CorelDraw and its sister photo-manipulation software was a marketable attribute and would give the holder the ability to produce the graphics for virtually any grey literature report. It must have moved on now. Has anybody any suggestions? I think that pip would do best to get proficient at that and if you ever come across a rotering pen dig its nib into the table top.

[BAJR]

http://www.bajr.org/books/ have a look at the Drawing & Illustration section

here is one to recommend : http://astore.amazon.co.uk/britisharchae...0521103177

Archaeological Illustration (Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology)
By Lesley Adkins, Roy Adkins

[BAJR]

There was a time when being proficient in a vector computer package like CorelDraw and its sister photo-manipulation software was a marketable attribute and would give the holder the ability to produce the graphics for virtually any grey literature report. It must have moved on now. Has anybody any suggestions? I think that pip would do best to get proficient at that and if you ever come across a rotering pen dig its nib into the table top.

How true... how true... I made my living out of Corel Draw.. V2! ah happy days.. I still use it.. and illustrator... but I would say that like anything... understand the pricipals before using the technology.

ie Learn to use a Plane Table before venturing into Lecia TC1200 GPS smart Rovers - oh... and my new Rotrings (available from Past Horizons Shop are lovely to use!

[Unitof1]

Oh really, the world wide trend- recomend more books- so you will need a shelf and that will need a wall and that is where the dust will settle, where am I to put my puter. So archaeologists will be the last to produce things that look like books and not only that in those books they will have illustrations that will look they were done with pen and ink and possibly to illustrate the original penknike. This is why we must maintain redundant churches, so that we can be reminded that all is folly.

[mpoole]

A computer and a camera can capture the image but a drawing sometimes elevates an artefact into something more. Some images I've seen lift the artefacts from finds to art, while still remaining true to the subject.

I spend a lot of time looking for images of beads (well, yeah...) and some of the older illustrations really do have a soul. They can also on occasion capture elements of an item in a way that cameras can't, lighting is difficult and the image is sometimes extremely flat and boring. Mike (the quiet other half) spends a lot of his time drawing beads, before trying to make them. It gives him a sense of the structure and helps work out means of creating the bead in a way that just looking at an image cannot. This is, of course, the opinon of a non-archaeologist.

[BAJR]

and a damn good one!

[Unitof1]

Bead doesn’t seem to be a very old word, you might expect that it would go back to the Stone age. Does anybody know what bead was in latin?

[mpoole]

Bead doesn’t seem to be a very old word, you might expect that it would go back to the Stone age. Does anybody know what bead was in latin?

No. Bead is derived from the A-S 'bede' as in bidden or praying. The common term in German or French is 'perlen' or 'perle' which means any bead, not just pearls. There is a reference in the Vindolanda tablets to jewellery but not beads in particular. Anyone who does know what the Latin for bead is, please let us know!

[Unitof1]

Yes. bead sounds like it was derived from the old Venerable (personable name) A-S. Now if there was one group that had beads it was the A-S.

There is the greek χάντρα but is that more meaning sphere? Maybe beads dont exist, figment of a modern fashion accessory. whats important, the hole , the string, the necklace, cant remember did romans or saxons have earrings. There are no beads in the bible but there are i's of needles.

there is the sanskrit ecstatical moaning word maNi

Not sure,
what to draw?