Early Crowd Painter Portrait of Roosevelt
Early attempts at making crowdsourced portraits.
Doug Marx and Luke Kelly's Vangobot
The painting robot called Vangobot is simply awesome. It is the rare breed of art creating robot that actually leaves behind an aesthetically pleasing piece of art. Most robots make abstract art or are performance pieces.
This is of course a self serving statement as I have made a similar robot, but just take a look at this one compared to mine. What I found most interesting is that while both myself and the artist/programming team made this with the same sort of approach, our robots are different in a number of ways, least of which stylistically. Their robot paints with multiple brushes and smoothly mixes colors with one another. Even though we share a basic approach our robots have their own style.
Vangobot makes what look to be impressionistic paintings. Smooth flowing strokes compared to my harsh and rigid straight lines. While I can do curves, I like the cross-hatching effect of mine. Similarly while Vangobot can probably do straight lines, it prefers algorithms that swirl paints onto the canvas.
What will be interesting as more and more artists realize how cool painting robots can be is to see all the styles that pop out of them. Unlike what I expect the public would think is going to happen, I bet each robot is as unique and different from one another as Vangobot is from my painting robot.
Almost like a personality.
If you have purchased one of mine, I highly suggest you get something from these guys and start a modern painting robot art collection. I guarantee you there will be many more entries into this genre in the coming years…
Picasso, Warhol, and Robot
Warhol once said he wanted to paint like a robot. Painting robots now make his wish possible. This piece is a robot’s interpretation of a Picasso as may have been executed by Warhol.
Warhol Picasso and Robot (58"x18")
Big claim of course, and probably not true. Well the part where it was painted by my robot is true.
I took an image of Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” and fed it into my robots algorithms. It then came up with the painting you see above. Cool thing about when my robot paints though is that it then is able to repaint the image in a similar manner. This was done to make the three canvas triptych. If you look at each image, you will see slight differences. It is sort of a print, but unique. A close up of one of the three canvases can be seen below.
Like all my work with the robot, this is for sale to support further robotic art development. You can also click here to see other robot generated paintings.
Two Large Format Paintings by my most Recent Robot
Above is my most recent painting. A pop art portrait of Jelly Roll Morton as a Teenager. It is a large piece (62″x52″). It is currently for sale on ebay and comes with free framing if you are interested.
I just finished one of my larger paintings. It is a 6 canvas painting of the Washington National Cathedral. Each canvas is 16″x20″. Installation size is 50″x41″. It is the first of what I think will be several location pieces set in Washington DC.
Washington National Cathedral, 50″x41″, 2009
You can purchase this painting, or even commission a painting of a location that you would like to have by visiting my ebay store at my online store. I also have about 60 other paintings for sale there.
Robot Now Taking Live Photos of its Progress
Those of you familiar with my art know that I work with a robot that I designed and programmed to help me out with the brush strokes. A picture of one of the robotic heads is to the top left of this blog.
An interesting recent improvement is a live feed of what the robot is painting at this very instant. Below is a sample of the live image. It is created by collaging photos taken from the robotic head every dozen or so brush strokes.
The top left image is the painting that it is working to complete. The window to the right is a birds eye view of the painting (the collage). And the text on the left are some stats on its progress. This image was taken when the robot had finsihed only 7% of the painting. If you want to see a more complete image, or just want to check out the most recent live photo, go to my homepage at http://www.vanarman.com.
Large Scale Portrait Painted by my Robot
Kenny is a 44″x35″ (9 framed canvas 14″x11″ canvases) robot painting that I have been working on for the past week. I am doing more and more portraits these days. Also, I am doing larger and larger scale work. This painting took my robot 4 days to paint. Keeping the paint wet was the challenge.
Robotic Prints of Bon Iver Album
Recently the Indie Rock Artist/Group Bon Iver reached number 1 on the i-tunes sales charts with their Blood Bank release. I was contacted by Bon Iver’s record label, Jagjaguwar, to commemorate the achievement with Robotic paintings of their last two album covers. To be clear, I did not come up with the album art. My robot merely used the album covers as input to create 2 24″x24″ paintings. I enjoyed this commission and think that a robot painting of a band’s successful album beats the impersonal platinum record that some record labels award.
New Painting Robotic Head with Camera and Light
About a month ago, I added real time recording capabilities to my painting robot. Above is a picture of the newly fabricated robotic head. The protective wood case contains a real time camera. It takes images of the painting from a birds eye view. A fluorescent light was also added in a temporary test installation (notice the zip ties). If the light proves durable, it will become a permanent part of the robotic head.
This improvement adds two capabilities. The first is that it post real time images of paintings as they are being painted. This allows patrons who commission portrait and paintings to watch the painting being made. It also allows me to monitor the painting romotely and check on its progress. Since paintings take between 12-48 hours to complete, this is a very useful tool.
The second capability that this adds is related to painting quality. Prior to the camera, my algorithms were painting blind. Instructions were sent to the robotic head and it painted with no feedback from how well it was executing the painting. Now my algorithms can monitor how well a painting is being executed and make adjustments as needed. To put this in persepective, try closing your eyes and drawing. Now open your eyes and perform the same drawing. The difference in quality should be obvious. My painting robot is no longer painting with its eyes closed…
Iconic C3-P0 Pop Art
One of the most popular subjects for paintings my painting robot is famous robots from popular culture.
C-3PO Diptych, 40″x16″, Acrylic on Two Canvases
Though not as popular as R2-D2 paintings, C-3PO definitely has his fans. This painting was made by my painting robot using a scan algorithm. All strokes are perfectly vertical. this piece has been on exhibition at the Corcoran alongside a similar R2-D2 piece that sold.
Painting Robot to be in DC Exhibition September 13th-16th
My painting art robot, Zanelle, and some of our art works will be on display at an upcoming exhibition in Washington DC. The show is entitled DC FRESHLY SQUEEZED. The opening party is scheduled for Saturday, September 13th, 2008. It will be at 1248 Blagden Alley, NW (off 9th Street) Washington DC.
More details are provided in the flier below…
New Robotic Head Installed on Painting Robot
In a post long ago I promised to show a history of robotic heads used by my painting art robot, Zanelle. Here it finally is. Below are pictures of the first three robotic heads that were used to hold a brush and apply brush strokes to canvas. None of these are being used any longer. They have been replaced by my fourth and fifth robotic head, the fifth one is pictured even further below.
The first head was absurd (top). A hand wrapped electro magnet that worked so poorly I had to have counter weights on the opposite side of the brush. But it made cool strokes. Unfortunately it only lasted a couple of weeks before I replaced it.
The second head was awesome (middle). Completely hand made primarily with wood, this robotic head painted for over a year without failure. I just retired it today and replaced it with a new head. Its only problem was that it would overheat and loose electromagnetic strength the longer it was in operation.
The third head was acceptable (bottom). It worked O.K., but didn’t have the style of the second. Also, it would jam occasionally. That is why when the fourth robotic head was constructed, I replacedis one with it instead of the second.
The fourth robotic head (unpictured), looks very similar to the fifth robotic head which is pictured below. It was designed and fabricated by Jacobus McKenzie. It does a majority of my paintings these days.
The fifth robotic head (above), was just installed on one of my painting robots. It too was designed and fabricated by Jacobus McKenzie. I worked with him to make a couple of improvements over the fourth one. I do not know how well it works yet as it is currently in the middle of a test run.
Will keep you updated…
Pindar
Audience Produces Artwork with Interactive Robot
Multiple audience members created paintings with my art robot at the opening of the FLIK Interactive Art Exhibition last night (July 26, 2008). A video of how she paints with a brush on canvas can be seen at www.vanarman.com, or in the link bar on this blog.
At times there was a line of several people waiting to give the robot a shot. At first people were shy but once samples of audience work started piling up on the robot, everyone seemed to want to make a painting with it. Below is some of my favorite audience produced work.
I particularly like the walrus. It was painted by someone who told me they could not draw very well. I told her not to worry about that and loaded a picture of a walrus into the art application that is used to control my robot. She then traced the walrus and came out with what I consider a dramatic piece.
Some people traced while others free-handed. Below is a painting of a robot called “CC6”. It was designed by a 7 year old who made 3 or 4 practice robots before finally arriving at his final design.
The second night of the opening will begin tonight at 6:00 PM (July 26, 2008). Come by the Washington D.C. National Harbor to try your hand at painting with an art robot.
Pindar
