/prəˈdʒɛk.tər ˈmɛθ.əd/

Projector method

noun · reference-transfer technique

What it is

In the projector method, a real beam of light carries the image onto the working surface. The artist dims the room, aligns the projected picture to the wall or canvas, and draws over the lit outlines. Because the throw can be set to any distance, the same source image scales from a sketchbook page to a building-sized mural without redrawing.

Three projector types recur. An opaque projector (or episcope) reflects light off a flat printed image, so no transparency is needed. An overhead projector shines through a hand-drawn or printed acetate. A digital projector throws a file directly. The method differs from the camera lucida, which casts no light, and from AR tracing, which keeps the room lit and pins the image to a device rather than to the wall.

Etymology

"Project" comes from the Latin proicere, "to throw forth." Optical projection of pictures dates to the seventeenth-century magic lantern, described by Christiaan Huygens around 1659 and popularised by Athanasius Kircher.¹ The reflective opaque projector, or episcope, followed in the nineteenth century, and overhead and digital projectors brought the technique into ordinary studio use through the twentieth.

Examples in use

Muralists and scene painters have long projected studies onto walls at night to chalk in the main shapes before painting; sign painters used opaque projectors to scale lettering and logos.² Andy Warhol projected photographic source images onto canvas to lay in his portraits and Pop subjects, a working method documented in his catalogues raisonnés.³ The technique remains standard for any job where the finished image is far larger than the reference.