Cornelissen Camera Lucida

The Cornelissen Camera Lucida is a modern version of a traditional artists' aid used to assist fast accurate and realistic drawing and painting. This optical instrument uses mirrors which allow the artist to view a virtual image of the scene in front as if it were already a picture on the drawing paper. A Camera Lucida with a glass prism has recently been used in a number of drawings and commentaries on traditional techniques by the artist David Hockney. In his book "Secret Knowledge" he sets out that many artists of the past used lenses as an aid to accuracy.
The Camera Lucida is a practical working instrument providing three main benefits:

It provides the potential for greater accuracy.

It increases the speed at which the artist can work.

It enables the artist to work on the composition of the picture before starting detailed work.

Our Camera Lucida includes two polycarbonate mirrors fixed in a moulded plastic housing (12cm x 5cm). This is attached by an arm to an A3 size black MDF drawing board and includes a camera tripod attachment on the base. The board has two detachable supports at one end to hold images. They allow the Camera Lucida to be used to make drawings based on photographs. When used in this way the finished drawing is the same size as the photograph. The Camera Lucida provides approximately a 50 degree viewing angle. This is sufficient to view the whole of an A3 sized paper with the instrument held in place by the arm about 52cm above the centre of the paper. Achieving a 50 degree angle of view assumes the eye is close to the instrument. Users with spectacles will achieve a smaller angle of view. Both right and left-handed versions are available.