Technical Illustration

Technical Illustration is a wide field, ranging from freehand pencil sketches up to photorealistic airbrush renderings, through India ink cutaway perspective drawings.

The technical illustrator needs a complete knowledge of technical drawing language, of perspective, of many art media and techniques; a wide technical education, the sensibility of a painter, the lighting mastering of a photographer.

The piston, pencil on paper, 10" x 12" (25 x 30 cm), 1988. Drawn from life. For this illustration, entirely free hand drawn copying the real piston, which had been cutaway in my father's workshop, I used lead pencils ranging from 2H to 7B, a stump and an eraser.

Besides, the illustrator shall be able to fancy the game lights and shades are likely to play on a nonexistent object which has just been designed but which hasn't been realized yet, as illustrations are often used to describe an object weeks before it can be photographed.

I started loving technical illustration very early, since, as a child, I was fascinated by the drawings I saw in technical manuals in my father's workshop. Later, I became fond of perspective, which I could study in depth, of color usage and of several pictorial techniques, from pastels, which I conceive a real passion for, to airbrush.

Fountain pen, pastels on paper, detail, 1997 Size: the pen is 34 cm (13.4") This illustration, performed as a personal research, is just reaching the very limits of pastels possibilities.

Perspective urged me later to go deep inside photography: conical projections used in perspective representations are actually the same that take place inside a camera; lens interchange is equivalent to variations in the field of view, and a view camera (the only tool for first-rate architectural photography) can achieve a perfect perspective with two vanishing points, without apparent deformations.

Through photography (which remained an hobby, indeed) I improved my knowledge about correct light usage, which gave me a better consciousness in choosing lighting patterns for my illustrations subjects.

Chronograph, vector graphics. Original file size: 79 KB. The "Race Committee" wrist chronograph, which I conceived to be used by colleagues Sail Racing Judges. In early 1988 lights and shades are still playing the same game.