We hope you’ve enjoyed the past few months of the Lanchester SketchClub, and we look forward to resuming in person at some point, but for the time being we will be continuing online. May’s Lanchester SketchClub looked at Past and Present and we look forward to sharing your artwork online on Twitter using the #CovSketchbook or tag us @lanchester_ia or via our Facebook page.
The SketchClub is a monthly space and time to be creative and sketch anything related to a different Lanchester inspired theme. On the last Wednesday of every month the new theme will be revealed and this month we are automating art with… Drawing Machines!
The short video and pictures below will hopefully provide some inspiration and feel free to delve into the archives for some inspiration. Click on the images to see them in the online archive or download the worksheet.
Drawing Machines
Fred Lanchester’s first patent in 1888 was actually a drawing machine that would help engineers and technical illustrators to produce isometric drawings.
LAN-6-1 Isometrograph patent 1888
LAN-6-1 Isometrograph patent 1888
Early example of perspective in art – The Battle Of San Romano (1438-40) – Paolo Uccello, National Gallery
DaVinci developed a contraption called The Perspectograph, a table-like easel with a piece of glass inside a frame.
Signatures or Handwriting machines designed to mimic and synthesize human handwriting such as the Polygraph – John Isaac Hawkins & Charles Willson Peale 1825
A stylus at the end of a swinging pendulum. Harmonograph Images , George Cass 1979
Camera Obscuras (Chambres Noire) Lerebours et Secretan (1853)
Camera Lucida – In 1807, Sir William Hyde Wollaston patented the Camera Lucida—and brought life-drawing to a whole new level.
Find out more about these amazing machines and more at www.drawingmachines.org.
“Fountain Charles Alhambra Granada” by Henry Vaughan Lanchester
Drawing machines began to take the form of geometric toys in the 1920’s with the Hoot-Nanny (Magic Designer) itself a development of late 19th century devices and a forerunner to Spirograph
Sketches are combined with CAD drawings and computer generated renderings to bring cutting edge vehicles to life from the from the next generation of automotive designers – Seungyuop Lee BA 2019
Osita Ugwueze created a flight simulation model of a manned flying machine that was patented Frederick Lanchester in 1897, but never built
