Artograph Tips & Techniques
for Light Boxes

Stencilling Backlight the stencil onto the card for easy positioning. Then use a dry flat bristle brush and pounce up and down to apply paint. Reapply paint as needed.	Embossing Tape the stencil face down on the screen. Place card or paper face down over the stencil. Use a ball stylus to trace the outline with firm but not excessive pressure.	Calligraphy and Lettering Trace script styles and illuminated lettering.
Embroidery Appliqué and Quilting Trace a pattern directly onto fabric for stitching or cut outs.	Scrapbooking Make cut-outs, borders and mounts to decorate pages and enhance photos and souvenirs in memory albums.	Cartooning Professionals and amateurs speed up production and accuracy with a light box.

Embroidery Appliqué, Quilting & Needlework: To trace patterns directly onto paper and lightweight fabrics, simply lay the design or pattern on the light box screen and place your working surface over the top of the design or pattern. Switch the light box on and draw the outline in soft pencil or tailor's chalk. Tip: if pattern or design is hard to see, turn room lights off or use tracing paper.

Scrapbooking, Embossing & Cartooning: For cut-outs, filigree and pierced work, cut around the design with a craft knife or scalpel, or pick around the outline with a sharp point.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia

The camera obscura (Lat. dark chamber) was an optical device used in drawing, and one of the ancestral threads leading to the invention of photography. In English, today's photographic devices are still known as "cameras".

The principle of the camera obscura can be demonstrated with a rudimentary type, just a box (which may be room-sized, or even hangar sized) with a hole in one side, (see pinhole camera for construction details). Light from only one part of a scene will pass through the hole and strike a specific part of the back wall. The projection is made on paper on which an artist can then copy the image. The advantage of this technique is that the perspective is accurate, thus greatly increasing the realism of the image (correct perspective in drawing can also be achieved by looking through a wire mesh and copying the view onto a canvas with a corresponding grid on it).

With this simple do-it-yourself apparatus, the image is always upside-down. By using mirrors, as in the 18th century overhead version (illustrated in the Discovery and Origins section below), it is also possible to project an up-side-up image. Another more portable type, is a box with an angled mirror projecting onto tracing paper placed on the glass top, the image upright as viewed from the back.

As a pinhole is made smaller, the image gets sharper, but the light-sensitivity decreases. With too small a pinhole the sharpness again becomes worse due to diffraction. Practical camera obscura use a lens rather than a pinhole because it allows a larger aperture, giving a usable brightness while maintaining focus.