NAS member Ross Atabey has found that archaeological illustration skills can take you to some exciting places. And that university courses are great, but NAS tutors have something a little extra!

Having completed my undergraduate degree in 1995, I spent five happy years in maritime archaeology, predominantly in the Eastern Mediterranean. As often happens with graduate archaeologists at this level, I drifted into home ownership and parenthood and the privilege of having to pay for it. 

But back to the carefree days! When not at depth excavating a shipwreck, I involved myself with manual, field drawing of artefacts, in the case of Mediterranean shipwrecks these mostly consisted of amphorae and ceramic fragments, and hull timbers (if you were lucky enough to find them in a sealed context, this usually translates as under several hundred concreted amphorae forming the classic tumulus site). 

Image: Ross Atabey hard at work.

So fast forward 25 years and a growing sense of gross under-fulfilment and inadequacy led me to enrolling on the master's program in maritime archaeology at Southampton University. Having passed through this process and graduated, with enormously expanded faculties, thanks to the intellectual rigour and quality of teaching we received. Since graduating, I have been lucky to spend a good chunk of my summers involved in maritime archaeology, both in the UK, Turkey, and Greece. 

Last winter I sat the NAS course in digital recording of artefacts. This was a new departure for me, as hitherto  I only had experience in manual drawing, however, anyone wishing to illustrate in this field must have the ability to convert manual drawings into digitised versions or sharing and publication. 

Image: Screenshot of Digital Illustration course attendees

The course tutor, Mark Hoyle, has decades of experience behind him and infinite patience to go with it. Naturally the younger students picked it up more quickly than the older dinosaurs, but Mark patiently went over the process as many times as needed for us all to competently complete our assigned drawings. 

The course was well structured and paced, and definitely got us well up into the foothills, and left us all confident in taking our digital illustration to a higher level. But as important as the day's learning is, Mark's willingness to be available for advice seemed to be at all hours.

I recently spent six weeks in Turkey drawing bits and pieces of amphorae. My manual drawing experience has been in abeyance for 25 years, though I still had the rudiments. Sat in an ancient Turkish village schoolroom, I frequently pinged Mark emails on various aspects, techniques, and methods of drawing; the replies were almost always received within 30 minutes. There is no aspect of manual or digital drawing that Mark cannot advise on.

Image: Ross Atabey drawing in a Turkish school house.

 

Image: some of Ross's illustration work.

All the tutors on NAS courses it seems are chosen not just for their technical competency, but also for their willingness to always be available for help and advice, as I very happily found out from sitting the photogrammetry course in December. These courses are genuinely good value and to be strongly recommended.

If you want to learn archaeological illustration from the amazing and dedicated Mark Hoyle, then sign up for his half-day class before our conference in Durham on Friday 15th November 2024. Or look out for his online courses in Introduction to Archaeological Illustration and Digital Illustration next year.