Page 312 - Green - Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook. 2nd ed

Chapter 11: Artifact Drawing 291
One of the main inhibitions affecting the drawing of artifacts is that not everyone thinks that they can draw well. Many people have a psychologi- cal block about drawing. The age-old statement: “I cannot draw because I am not artistic,” is often heard from students about to be required to do their first archaeological drawing. There is no doubt that a good drawing is more difficult to accomplish than a good photograph and, in general, it takes much longer to draw an object than to photograph it, but there are aids that can speed up the drawing process. It must be emphasized that artifact drawing is a technical skill, not an art. Almost anyone can learn to draw, and it is more important, for example, to be neat rather than artistic. Once the skill has been learned, it is quick and easy to do and it becomes quite routine to produce great numbers of drawings at a reasonably fast rate.
An additional problem with drawing is that it is sometimes not possible to draw an object on the spot. It may be that it is inconvenient, there is not enough time, or that the object is too big and cannot be brought back to the drawing office. In such cases it is essential to record all the relevant information so that the object can be drawn later; this will include mea- surements, sketches, and photographs of the object. In this situation, as a general rule, a combination of drawing and photography is the best solu- tion. It is, however, always preferable to produce the drawing in the pres- ence of the object, even if it is a rough draft, because a single missing measurement means that the drawing cannot be completed properly. This poses a serious problem if the object is no longer available for measure- ment. A photograph may help to resolve the omission, but it is feasible that one may have to return to the object and retrieve the essential measure- ment. Thus, unless one is very experienced, it is always advisable to draw in the field.
In the technical details given next, I have intentionally gone into some depth with this subject mainly because there are a lot of skills involved, many of which cannot be found in literature. The few sources describing artifact drawing include Brodribb (1970), Dillon (1981), Hope-Taylor (1966, 1967), and Piggot and Hope-Taylor (1965).
II. OBJECTIVES OF ARTIFACT DRAWING
Before making a drawing it is essential to determine what the drawing is for. If it is simply a record, to be used at the scale at which you are drawing, then the problems are simplified. But if the drawing is to be reduced or enlarged, special care is needed. By reducing a drawing by one half, the appearance is generally improved markedly (provided some simple rules are observed). If a drawing is reduced more than four times, unless