Black and White Drawings

This basic traditional technique consists of placing an insect specimen under a stereomicroscope, with a device called a camera lucida attached. Freehand drawing is not permitted, as the image has to be measurably accurate.

The camera lucida uses a system of prisms, lenses and a mirror to allow the artist to see a shadowy image of the pencil and paper at the same time as he or she is looking down the microscope at the specimen. The outline and major features are traced using the camera lucida. Then the outline of the body is traced again onto tracing paper and lined up to compensate for angle distortions and twisting of the specimen. Legs and antennae are drawn in last.

Often the specimen must be viewed at many different angles to see all the segments of the appendages so they can be reconstructed as they might appear in life. In a formal taxonomic drawing no foreshortening of legs is permitted, as the relative lengths of the various segments must be shown accurately.

Once the outline has been lined up, it is transferred to the drawing surface. Black and white drawings are done using white scraperboard. Scraperboard has a sprayed-on white clay surface, which can be scraped many times using special tools. The outline is firstly inked in and any darker areas are mapped out before painting them black with ink. The edges of the painted areas are then densely stippled with a technical pen to blend in with the lighter areas, whose shading is also rendered using stippled pen dots.

When the black painted areas are dry, they can be scraped white again in little dots, patches and sometimes lines to blend the shading with the stippled areas. This blending of stippling and scraping can produce a very realistic, almost photographic effect. In darker insects it is possible to render nearly all the shading and highlights using a scraper on a painted ink surface.

Illustration enables diagnostic features to be clear, even emphasised. The legs and antennae are visible with no foreshortening and information from several specimens is included. The illustrator can compensate for difficult to see features in the specimen with different lighting and viewing angles and distortions and damage can be repaired.