Archaeological illustration

Archaeological Illustration encompasses a number of sub disciplines. These are:

* Surveying : To produce an accurate record of sites and buildings and to record accurately where the sites and buildings lie within the landscape. Surveyors use a range of equipment including tapes, plane tables, total stations, 3D scanners, GPS and GIS to produce illustrations including plans, sections and elevations as well as isometric and axonometric illustrations which are regularly used in building recording. Survey data will be gathered on acid free paper, polyvinyl permatrace and archive stable digital formats.

* Photography : To produce a record of archaeological sites, buildings, artifacts and landscapes. Archaeological photographers will uses a range of different formats particularly black-and-white and colour slide.Digital photography is now starting to become more widely used and is especially useful for the recording of historic building. Aerial photography is commonly used as a tool for recording sites and is also used as a prospecting tool to locate new archaeological sites.

* Artefact illustration : To record objects using agreed conventions to allow further study of the objects by specialists on publication. Artefact illustrators will use pen-and-ink as well as graphics and page layout software.

* Interpretation and reconstruction illustration : To visualise the results of archaeological field work in a way that is meaningful and visually appealing to as many as possible. Reconstruction artists work in many media from traditional pen-and-ink and painted reconstruction to more modern techniques including 3D, virtual reality and video.

Technical illustration history

Technical illustrations flourished during the Renaissance period through the work of artists such as Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Drawings like these were three-dimensional and generally without measurements. Craftsman worked from these 3D respresentation, creating products on a one-of-a-kind basis. These products were manufactured from hand sketches or handdrawing on blackboards.

During the industrial revolution mass production and outsourcing created the need to adopt conventions and standards in technical illustrations that were universally understood. By the mid 1900s both artistic and technical illustrators had a predictable methodology available for illustrating objects and environments more realistically. Technical illustrations were further advanced during the photorealistic art movement around 1960.
Until the 1960s illustrations used to be hand-drawn, but in the 1960s computer engineers created a method to draw both straight and curved lines using computers. This resulted in rapid advances in both computers and software and this allowed people to create even very complex technical illustrations on a computer.