By Sheldon Greaves

Note: this post originally appeared on the Citizen Scientists’ League website.

With few other possible exceptions, the digital camera is probably the single most useful tool available to the citizen scientist. Both in the workshop and out in the field, the portable point-and-shoot camera is becoming simultaneously more sophisticated, versatile, and affordable.

I use a camera extensively, for fieldwork. My camera is an Olympus SP-350 that I purchased several years ago. Actually, I bought one for Denise to celebrate our anniversary, but when I saw what a useful beast it was, I looked at the budget and decided I needed one too.

But prior to that time, I didn’t have a camera, so my visual data collection was, by necessity, “Old School.” Before the advent of portable photographic equipment, the sketch pad and paint box were standard items in any traveler’s luggage. Drawing and sketching was part of one’s education. John Muir’s remarkable sketches of his wanderings through Yosemite Valley helped him convince the government to make it a national park. And, of course, there are the exquisite drawings from nature by DaVinci that are as remarkable for their scientific content as their artistic quality.

For my part, since I did not have a camera, I used a sketch pad occasionally supplemented with clumsily-applied watercolor. A regular film camera was available, but I didn’t want to incur the expenses of developing the film. Besides, I further rationalized my use of analog media by reasoning that using a digital camera was pandering to my weaker instincts. But there are other reasons why I used paper: when you draw something, by hand, you learn what it looks like and it sticks in your brain. A digital photo does not do that. During one of my walks around our house years ago in Rhode Island I found a couple of mushrooms. I brought them home to sketch them, since mushrooms are excellent subjects for sketching. They hold still. One in particular was a striking, purple specimen, which I sketched and painted. In the process I learned exactly what it looked like so that months later, while browsing in a local public library I stumbled upon a field guide to mushrooms and, without referring to the sketch (which was at home), I looked up my subject and discovered that it could not be anything but an iodine cort. I still remember what it looks like.

I also have a very clear idea of what an eastern pondhawk looks like because one landed on my knee while I was sitting near a pond. My sketch pad was not within reach, but a pocket notebook was, so while it sat there, I drew it.

While the digital camera can scoop up lots of data, using a sketch pad puts a lot of data into your brain instead of a memory card. Sketching is a way of thinking and a way of learning. Just as one learns about something when required to write about it, so does the visual world come clearer if you draw a picture of diagram. You do not have to be an “artist” to do this. My “formal” art training consists almost entirely of a single drawing class I took in college near the end of my undergraduate degree about 27 years ago.

If you’re new to this, visit an art supply store or an office supply store. Get a sketch pad that is small enough for you to hold comfortably. Different kinds of paper will give you different effects. The roughness or “tooth” of the paper will influence how much and what kind of detail you can include. For pencils, I prefer softer leads, 2B or 4B, plus a harder HB. I like using a technical drafters’ lead holder, which takes leads 2mm wide. This is much easier to use than the standard mechanical pencil and delivers a line with some real authority. Look for a small sharpener made especially for these kinds of leads. I’ve also found that carpenter’s pencils make excellent sketching tools for laying in large areas of background tone. I don’t sketch with a pen very often, but when I do it’s usually a fine-point Uniball, although a simple ballpoint can give you some nice silvery effects. For erasing, I like either a moldable rubber eraser or polymer erasers. For watercolors, I use a large pallet at home, since it’s too cumbersome in the field. I use it mostly to just add bits of color. Very small watercolor kits are available, and you can do surprising things with a child’s watercolor set, the kind with the pans filled with hardened pigment that soften when you wet them. You’ll want to get a better brush than what usually comes in such kits, but even paintbrushes found at your local dollar store will vastly exceed them in quality.

Now, just go out and start mucking around with your pad. Take your time, don’t stress it. Start by drawing simple things that won’t fly away or wander off. If you are repelled by your initial efforts, try again. Remember that drawing is a skill and it can be learned. Let me close with this reminiscence by cartoonist Jules Feifer describing his early experience in the late thirties and early forties as a young comic book artist, who applied for the job even though he didn’t know how to draw:

“The schlock houses were the art schools of the business. Working blind but furiously, working from swipes, working from the advice of others who drew better because they were in the business two weeks longer, one, suddenly, learned how to draw. It happened in spurts. Nothing for a while: not being able to catch on, not being able to foreshorten correctly, or get perspectives straight or get the blacks to look right. Then suddenly: a breakthrough. One morning you can draw forty per cent better than you could when you quit the night before. Then, again, you coast. Your critical abilities improve but your talent won’t. Nothing works. Despair. Then another breakthrough. Magically, it keeps happening. Soon it stops being magic, just becomes education.” (The Great Comic Book Heroes, The Dial Press, 1965, p. 50)

There are some great tools to help you learn some techniques on your own, which I plan to review in a later post.