| Christine | Farmer |

Above: Twenty years ago, when I first started doing the stipple drawings, I didn’t use a magnifier at all, and yet when I began again this year after such a long time, I found myself picking up a magnifying glass: not only had I a greater desire for finer detail, but no doubt my eyes are not what they were. So the first part of my current drawing was done using a hand-held magnifying glass in my left hand, while holding the pen in my right hand. Looking back now I wonder whether this hunching up over detail didn’t contribute to my painful frozen shoulder, but it felt comfortable enough at the time.

Above: Horstmann Pluslite. Then one of the readers of this blog wrote to me and asked why I didn’t use a magnifying light. In fact I do have this Horstmann Pluslite, but unfortunately it’s not suitable for use with my current set-up as there is no space to the left of the drawing table and it needs a flat surface to mount it. Here’s the lamp, which is not only really beautiful but sits accurately in any position you care to put it in. It’s a truly lovely piece of design and a real shame I can’t use it at the moment. The only real downside to the lamp is that it’s terribly awkward to move around when not in use, and is quite nippy on the fingers! But despite that I love it and have kept it for many years even when I was not drawing. At the moment I’ve put a daylight bulb in it for additional lighting at the table (see below), but I don’t use the magnifier. I expect I will do later when I’m working on smaller drawings and have my table level.

Above: “Daylight” lamp: Recently I decided to purchase a new anglepoise lamp so that I could have my left hand free, and I decided on this one from the ‘Daylight’ lamp company. The advantages over my old Horstmann lamp are that it has a longer reach, and a clamp to attach it to the board making it far more versatile in terms of positioning. The downside is that it’s not as easy to get it to stay in position at some angles as its head seems a touch too heavy for the rest of it. Positioning the clamp on the board is therefore important, and I have found that it is often easier to move my drawing around rather than disturb the lamp. It has taken quite a few sessions to get used to such a contraption in between me and my drawing, but having now become used to where to position everything – and the alarming size of my fingers under the magnifier – this lamp has made my closer work a lot easier. 

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