DRAWING & DRAFTING BOARDS

DRAWING BOARDS: Less Boring Than You Feared

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What's In A Name?

Call it what you will - Drawing Board, Drafting Board, Animation Drawing Board, Artist Drawing Board, Architectural Drafting Board - they all do pretty much the same thing, i.e. provide a smooth angle-adjustable work surface ideal for just about any drawing, artistic, and/or creative need.

The features may vary, but that is basically it. Catch ya next blog.

Just kidding.

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Where did drafting boards originate?

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Out of the mists of time, the first drawing board appears - circa 3,000 BCE, complete with a technical plan for the design of a temple in Lagash, Babylon. Originally carved (literally) in stone, technical drawings advanced notably with the advent of prepared animal skins in the form of leather (think Dead Sea Scrolls, about 2,100 years ago), the invention of rice paper in Xuancheng, China (Tang dynasty, 690 - 705 AD), and animal-derived vellum paper (think medieval books hand-lettered and hand-illustrated on lambskin vellum).

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*‘Brunelleschi’s Experiment’, early perspective drawing circa 1420 C.E.*

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Add to that the concept of perspective drawing developed during the Renaissance (1300 to 1500); parallel projection drawing (whaaaa?!?!? essentially the art of rendering a 3D concept in 2D on a flat sheet of paper, easy peasy, right?) developed during the Industrial Revolution (1750-1850); and the invention of synthetic vellums (1800's), and poof! you have a newly minted graphic art professional and her/his need for a solid, stable, ergonomically-designed and economically-produced professional drafting table / drawing board upon which to work.

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Form Follows Function: from Fine Furniture to Industrial Drafting Board

*Late 19th Century Drawing/Drafting Table*

*German Biedermeier architect’s table circa 1830*

Until the 1700's, drawing boards were pieces of fine furniture designed and built for upper class gentlemen to be used and displayed in their homes: picture an ornately crafted desk with a large adjustable work surface / drawing board that can tilt to almost any angle and be used in almost any configuration from sitting in front of a fully horizontal surface to standing with the top at a full 90 degree tilt - and everything in between.

With the Industrial Revolution came dedicated draft persons trained in technical drawing and employed directly by industry: the age of the 'gentleman draftsman' waned, the age of the professional draftsperson waxed, and the modern adjustable drafting board was born complete with angle and height adjustments to conform to individual comfort demands. The patent for the first 'modern' drafting table was awarded to Mr. George Ring on July 18, 1905 (US patent 795,065), giving us a standardized answer to the question 'what is a drafting board', and on July 28, 1959 was followed with US patent 2,896,328 issued to Mr. Claude Grady for his Portable Drawing Board complete with swiveling protractor head. The drafting board was now ready for prime time.

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What's the Angle?

Well, first off it's adjustable, and secondly it is the angle of the board in relation to the support, i.e. the degree of tilt, blah, blah, blah.

Who cares and why?

First (the obvious): EVERYONE (spelled "c-o-m-f-o-r-t"). Back pain is reduced and/or eliminated simply by increasing the angle of your drawing surface and reducing your physical overhang over the board. Upright = good; leaning over = bad. Upright = comfort; leaning over = discomfort. You get the idea.
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Second (the not-so-obvious): FORESHORTENING (spelled "s-u-c-c-e-s-s"). Or as I like to put it, the art of accurately rendering what you see. Simply put, it is much harder to draw something to scale/spec if the angle upon which you are working (i.e. the angle of your drawing board) is substantially different than the angle at which you are viewing the object you wish to reproduce. Ergo, adjustable drawing boards, quite simply, make it easier for you to succeed.

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Who Uses Them and Why

(Really?!? Thought this was fairly obvious by now but fine, I'll bite.) Just about everyone who creates just about anything. Boom.

Or, to be a tad more specific: draftspersons and architects, and pastelists, graphite artists, calligraphers, modelers, anime artists, graphic novelists, fabric artists, collage artists - literally almost any creative person who wants a strong flat surface and needs it to be easily adjustable for maximum comfort & success.

And thus the 'name' confusion: Drawing Board? Drafting Board? Animation Drawing Board? Artist Drawing Board? Collagist Board? Alvin PXB board? Pacific Arc PXB board? Architectural Drafting Board? Pacific Arc Parallel Bar Board? Call it what you will: it is the perfect creation station. Full stop.

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