I recently bought something called a Portable Optical Drawing Board on Amazon. Its description says in part “…The reflection allows you to trace or draw any masterpiece more easily anytime. You can see the image on the drawing paper…”

I’m not planning on tracing masterpieces, but I’ve been curious about the different versions of tools that help to accurately draw an image, some of them based on the “camera lucida” (Latin for “light chamber).” The camera lucida, patented in 1806, is an optical device used by artists to accurately draw objects. It projects an image of the object being viewed onto the surface on which it is drawn.

A camera lucida device that keeps popping up on my various feeds is the NeoLucida, a modern version of the camera lucida. But its cheapest version is $59, and I’m not convinced that I’d like using it enough to add it to my collection of why-did-I-buy-it art supplies.

I was looking around on Amazon for an alternative when I found the above-mentioned Portable Optical Drawing Board. Its first endearing quality is that it was only $16.49. Secondly, it looks (and is) fairly simple–a small sheet of plexiglass and a stand to support it as well as your phone, tablet, or whatever it is that you want to draw from.

I received mine today. I was excited to get it, but was a bit concerned when I saw the enclosed instructions:

OK, no help there. And no pictures enclosed, either. So, I looked at the image on Amazon for clues:

I went into the reviews to see if anyone there provided help, and instead saw comments like “don’t waste your money”, “doesn’t work as shown,” and “this is a piece of crap.” Great, just great. At least I only wasted $16.49.

I decided to try it out anyway. I figured out how to assemble the stand, and after peeling the protective plastic off the plexiglass, set it on the stand as shown in their photo. The set came with a few small sheets of thin paper, flimsier than copier paper. I put one of them on the table in front of the stand.

Then I looked through photos on my phone and chose one to try to project–this is a screen shot from the Trout Lake Otters & Fish Yellowstone virtual walking tour by City Walks on You Tube. These are great walking videos with beautiful scenery and informative descriptions of the passing flora & fauna being passed by the narrator/walker, Henry.

Something to take into consideration: because the image is a reflection like in a mirror, it appears flipped left to right compared to the original. You can correct for this by making a copy of your image and creating a flipped version using your phone’s photo app. I only thought of this later–my drawing is a flipped version of the original.

After setting my phone on the stand, I immediately realized that something was wrong with the setup. I flipped the positions of the plexiglass and the phone (with the back of my phone facing me), and this is what I saw:

I grabbed a pencil and reached beyond the plexiglass–I could see my hand holding the pencil over the piece of paper under the plexiglass, and the projected image on the plexiglass at the same time. While it was a little disorienting at first, I soon got used to it and did a quick tracing–it took less than 5 minutes. Note: the dimmer the lighting in the room, the better you can see the projected image.

Then I pulled out some colored pencils–nothing else would work on that paper I figured, and did a quick filling in of color. Below is the photo at the top and my drawing on the bottom:

This was a test drawing so I didn’t refine it like I should have, and the pencils didn’t work all that well on the not-meant-for-artwork paper. That said, I was pleased with the results, considering.

So, does the Portable Optical Drawing Board work? Yes, it does. It saved me a lot of time in fiddling with the placement of things in my drawing. I just wrote a review on Amazon explaining how I adjusted the device, and I hope it’s helpful.

Am I glad I bought it? Yes, definitely. I’d say it’s a well spent $16.49.