artifact illustration.
After my first archeological dig to Israel back in 2016, I fell in love with artifacts of any kind. For most people, illustrating artifacts is a mundane task, but for me it was like experiencing that object in a whole new light. After spending hours staring, measuring, touching a broken shard of pottery from the Roman Empire, you find a new detail you might not have or noticed its true color.
In 2017, I was lucky enough to train under an amazing Artifact Illustrator who I met the year before and by my third season I was illustrating all of our finds. What follows is a selection of my favorite illustrations that I’ve completed in the past.
the process.
Start to finish, an illustration can take up to 100 hours to complete.
I first measure every angle of the object. If it needs to be scaled down, I divide the measurements before I get started. After I have the measurements I create a rough sketch to scale and then I add the details using a speckle or dot method known as pointillism. Once the pencil illustration is complete I’ll either trace the object using ink or I will scan it and trace it digitally.
Here is a series of photos from my time in the field.
