it seems like there are enough people that maybe there should be a thread for this idk
lately i’ve been trying to get back into drawing and painting “just for the process” although i still find myself asking why am i even doing this. i’m specifically trying to make stuff that isn’t concerned with being capital-A Art for the time being, or even “any good”. because last time i took this up i was getting very caught up in "meaning control", in big ideas and the semiotics of materials and gestures, to the point that i was just immediately shooting down every possibility without giving anything a chance.
i’ve been collecting kids’ books which are illustrated by Diane deGroat, they’re very banal but delicate and attractive drawings with a ton of narrative information, and I think what I like about them is they’re not trying to impress me for how involved they actually are. They have an unassuming naturalism, let’s say. I can’t really draw like her, and i’m struggling to achieve the finer details on a sketchbook scale. maybe i need finer pens, idk- But i’ve tried to do some drawings that are sort of in that style where the kids are visibly queer or gender non conforming.
i got these ‘watercolor pencils’ as a present recently, and they’re really great. i can spend hours building up a really controlled drawing, layering colors obsessively… and then i get to go in and make the whole thing sopping wet and risk ruining everything in a few minutes. it’s like dominoes, where you’re just waiting for the gleeful moment where you get to knock it over
and the other thing i’ve been doing is looking for silly and fun craft projects i can make with found materials from the park
hbu?
― but some albums are more equalized than others (Deflatormouse), Friday, 7 March 2025 22:44 (five months ago)
hi! love this thread, bookmarked of course
― z_tbd, Friday, 7 March 2025 22:48 (five months ago)
:D
― but some albums are more equalized than others (Deflatormouse), Friday, 7 March 2025 22:51 (five months ago)
i recently was working on a large acrylic “mural” on the wall in my back basement stairs area. we have/had a basement diy venue and i wanted to christen it with a big painting which fit the visual theme of the flyers i’d make for the shows here. unfortunately my landlord is a libertarian piece of shit and my lease has just been terminated (the longest, saddest story - tenant rights in Missouri are virtually non-existent). so today i’m covering it up with white latex paint so that i don’t have to look at the mural and be reminded of it all, anymore. it’s a sad day.
it’ll be a minute til i can set up a working space in my new apartment, so in the meantime i’ve just been going to the park and drawing a lot, occasionally adding oil pastels. and after a long time off, i’m resuming regular figure drawing workshops next saturday, very exciting for that.
― z_tbd, Friday, 7 March 2025 22:53 (five months ago)
deflator, i’m cool with any answer to this, but do you envision people sharing stuff on this thread? typically over the last 15 years or so i’ve been posting a lot of my output on this recently retitled thread: zach's old animations and new visual art, updated every 25 to 60 days
especially when i’m on a roll, i tend to make a lot of things and post a lot, but i don’t want to overwhelm this thread with it. ideally i wish there were 50 people on this thread who were regularly making things and sharing them, so that my own things could just join the stream. i love so much to see what people are working on, whether it’s people just getting into things or highly skilled lifelong badasses. but for now i will probably hold off until lots of other people are sharing. i tend to accidentally crowd out people with my own enthusiasm, sometimes, and it’s something i’m trying to work on.
― z_tbd, Friday, 7 March 2025 22:56 (five months ago)
ugh, so sorry to hear about your mural and space, z :(of course feel free to share stuff here as often as you’re inclined, or on your own thread or both!
― but some albums are more equalized than others (Deflatormouse), Friday, 7 March 2025 23:08 (five months ago)
i may shy away from sharing work, or do so only selectively, but plz don’t let that stop you!!
― but some albums are more equalized than others (Deflatormouse), Friday, 7 March 2025 23:10 (five months ago)
I am bad at visual art but I'm trying to doodle more just as an outlet for creativity, I guess specifically an outlet that I can allow myself to be bad at (I write and do music stuff but I get paralysed by wanting to be good or interesting at those forms). I also decided to buy myself a mini lino printing kit, because being rubbish at controlling a pencil means I'll *definitely* be great at controlling carving utensils, right?
― emil.y, Friday, 7 March 2025 23:15 (five months ago)
thank deflator! it’ll be ok. part of the nice thing about working on that corner/stairs spot is i always knew it would be temporary, which really helped to lower the stakes and make it easier to do big moves without fear of “messing up”. next one i make will be better :)
― z_tbd, Friday, 7 March 2025 23:18 (five months ago)
xp emil.y have you ever tried collages?
― z_tbd, Friday, 7 March 2025 23:19 (five months ago)
Only for things like tape covers back in the day when I used to make compilation tapes for people, very occasionally since then. I have thought about getting back into it but there's way less free printed material around these days, I feel like you have to actively seek it out now.
― emil.y, Friday, 7 March 2025 23:22 (five months ago)
reason i mention it is that there’s a fun way you can use collages in more of a late-life matisse fashion, with the materials being little pieces of paper that you watercolor/gouache with whatever color you like (or just buy pre-colored sheets of paper from a store and save time) - then you make the collages by cutting out whatever shapes you want with whatever colors you want. it comes out very different than something you’d make using newspaper or magazines, printed material, etc - but it’s a way to make really cool compositions without having to rely so much on drawing/technical ability
― z_tbd, Friday, 7 March 2025 23:52 (five months ago)
Every so often I fetch out all my stuff and paw over it all, frustrates me that i'm not churning out more work. I don't help myself by starting pieces that are too large and end up unfinished. I need to downsize going forward.
So lately a lot of doodles and pen sketches for me whilst in office, but if I do paint it will be acrylic. I tried oils but couldn't get the hang of them at all. I enjoy mixing media though, paints, coloured pencils, crayons, markers, whatever I have.
― Ste, Saturday, 8 March 2025 02:20 (five months ago)
i really can’t doodle, it’s probably clear enough from my first post that i’m one of those people who can’t seem to work entirely intuitively i have (or had) the same problem with making music.
in high school these kids a couple of years below me one day asked to see all my class notebooks… because they assumed there would be lots of imaginative doodles in the margins. there was not a one! i always seem to create expectations that i can’t live up to.
lino printing is so brave, emily. that rules :D
for collage material, well, i once had a job in a photocopy store, like a mom & pop kinko’s. i used to put all kinds of objects and materials on the copy machine. some of it was just textural shit, like crumpled up tinfoil. using those xeroxes as collage elements = a kind of visual equivalent of sampling yourself i guess
― but some albums are more equalized than others (Deflatormouse), Saturday, 8 March 2025 02:43 (five months ago)
I recently re-bought How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way (the book, not the sweet video version) with the intention of drawing a comic about one of my dogs (already have several story ideas), but I really am just focusing on basics at the moment because I haven’t really drawn in quite a long time (isometric cube doodles and such aside)
― brimstead, Saturday, 8 March 2025 03:45 (five months ago)
I’ve been working on a series of collages for eight years or so, sometimes with large periods of inactivity. Collage is great because it’s not messy and I can work on it anywhere. They’re abstract for the most part. Eventually I would like to do versions of them as paintings.
I met my wife while we were both working on our master’s in studio arts with an emphasis in sculpture. There’s a life-sized bronze of myself cast from a mold in the living room. The kids call him “Bronze Daddy” and dress him in drag.
I like the idea of this thread! Will try to figure out pictures soon.
― Cow_Art, Saturday, 8 March 2025 06:58 (five months ago)
I used to do weekly life drawing classes for over ten years, then we moved cities and there weren't any good or convenient classes, and family got in the way, for the best part of six years. There was also a free untutored portraits class where we'd take turns to pose for 15 minutes, that went online during covid and stayed there so I've carried on been doing that, and last year not one but two life drawing classes started near me - but all three of them are on the same day! I've also started trying to oil paint in earnest after a few false starts (with oils and acrylic) over the years. It's hard! I'll post some pics later too.
― birming man (ledge), Saturday, 8 March 2025 07:45 (five months ago)
There’s a life-sized bronze of myself cast from a mold in the living room. The kids call him “Bronze Daddy” and dress him in drag.this is amazing, pics please!
― birming man (ledge), Saturday, 8 March 2025 07:46 (five months ago)
Ledge I was browsing ILX yesterday and saw some of your old work, when you were first getting started! Would love to see where you’re at now, particularly with the oil
― z_tbd, Saturday, 8 March 2025 15:02 (five months ago)
― z_tbd
― but some albums are more equalized than others (Deflatormouse)
These are great ideas, and I might well use them at some point, thank you.
The lino print kit is very much a mini model for home crafts and I am going to be terrible at it, but I'm hoping it will still be fun. Allowing myself to be bad at things without punishing myself for it is a skill I am still learning.
― emil.y, Saturday, 8 March 2025 16:17 (five months ago)
Also omg @ 'Bronze Daddy', I also demand pics
― emil.y, Saturday, 8 March 2025 16:18 (five months ago)
Deflatormouse, your posts itt have very much made me interested in getting into collaging, I have done the kind of stuff like pasting pictures of airstream campers onto pictures of outer space etc, but for whatever reason going more abstract hadn’t crossed my mind.
― brimstead, Saturday, 8 March 2025 16:39 (five months ago)
Someone I work with bought a huge sheet of… whatever refrigerator magnets are made of? For the purpose of converting their sticker collection into refrigerator magnets. I think it’s a cool idea.
― brimstead, Saturday, 8 March 2025 16:40 (five months ago)
― emil.y, Saturday, March 8, 2025 10:18 AM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
i remember seeing the pics in another thread, maybe one about record storage??
― budo jeru, Saturday, 8 March 2025 16:43 (five months ago)
oh duh z i meant to say your posts inspired me re collage as well! sorry, was stoned last night.
― brimstead, Saturday, 8 March 2025 18:02 (five months ago)
xp
That’s right, he’s sitting in front of my record shelves. Will post pics when I get back home in a couple of days. I’ve escaped to a beach house alone, abandoning my loving family for a weekend of making art, listening to good music and eating bad food.
― Cow_Art, Saturday, 8 March 2025 18:07 (five months ago)
xp oh no worries brimstead, truly! i think it’s so cool that you’re getting inspired!
cow_art - did you figure out how to post images? it’s way more complicated than it should be, but if you’re still looking for a way, i can show/tell you about a method involving imgur (no account necessary) that will take you about 15 seconds to use, once you get the hang of it
― z_tbd, Saturday, 8 March 2025 18:11 (five months ago)
― emil.y, Saturday, 8 March 2025 16:18 (four hours ago) link
^^^
― but some albums are more equalized than others (Deflatormouse), Saturday, 8 March 2025 20:33 (five months ago)
hell yeah, z - your work has a real sprit of adventure and investigation that’s contagious (and i hope more and more of it rubs off on me)
I’ve been working on a series of collages for eight years or so, sometimes with large periods of inactivity.
i am going to assume these "abstracts” are arranged into Cow print patterns until i see evidence to the contrary
I recently re-bought How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way (the book, not the sweet video version) with the intention of drawing a comic about one of my dogs (already have several story ideas)
omg i love this, please share one or more story ideas
he lino print kit is very much a mini model for home crafts and I am going to be terrible at it, but I'm hoping it will still be fun. Allowing myself to be bad at things without punishing myself for it is a skill I am still learning.
awesome, this is 100% what i’m doing here rn. i have purchased air dry clay! i have purchased various kits for little kids (i *wish* i could make stuff that looks like a 6 yr old did it), my whole thing right now is about taking the pressure off so i don’t prematurely shut myself down. that’s *so hard*!!! completely relate to this
lino print is one of the most intimidating media to me for sure!
― but some albums are more equalized than others (Deflatormouse), Saturday, 8 March 2025 20:44 (five months ago)
I can figure out the pic posting when I get back to a desktop. Too busy making art right now!
― Cow_Art, Saturday, 8 March 2025 20:51 (five months ago)
premise is basically: howard the dog runs out the front door of my apartment one day and goes down endless hallways, crosses a liminal backrooms realm into a parallel doggie world where he initially makes friends with old money casino lounge lizard dogs but soon becomes best friends with a sheepdog who comes from old money but introduces him to radical politics. I have the idea of Howard progressing through trade school/college and the comic getting really philosophical like Calvin and Hobbes or something. My two other dogs would make brief appearances periodically in a kind of “Statler and Walford/dishwashers in The Kingdom” chorus type role.
― brimstead, Saturday, 8 March 2025 22:57 (five months ago)
but just from getting back into drawing, drawing a whole page seems like an insane amount of effort right now, let alone an entire story
― brimstead, Saturday, 8 March 2025 22:58 (five months ago)
it wouldn’t be like, human type content just with dogs, they would still be talking about eating fish heads and sniffing asses and stuff
― brimstead, Saturday, 8 March 2025 22:59 (five months ago)
OK, I hesitated about posting this here, almost didnt do so, 'cause I don't paint or draw or sketch or sculpt; all I've done are take photos and set them to music - often Beethoven works. But then I saw the word "collage" (as well as "combine"), and reasoned that my little videos are basically montages, and montages are basically collages that utilize time rather than space, so figured that I'd post a single one, and if nobody likes it, they can either ignore it, or view and and then make nasty comments. As I've said to everybody I've showed these videos to, I give 90% of the creative credit to Beethoven, or Django Reinhardt, or the Beatles, or Cecil Taylor, Louis Armstrong, or whichever musician whose music seemed most appropriate to accompany my chpsen assortment of visuals
Anyways, so here is "Circulation", watch it, and enjoy it, or neither
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVLsxeKT9tA
― Hongro Hongro Hippies (Myonga Vön Bontee), Sunday, 9 March 2025 04:38 (five months ago)
Was there a grimy condom package in there?!?
That was great!
― Cow_Art, Sunday, 9 March 2025 04:51 (five months ago)
I really enjoyed that!
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Sunday, 9 March 2025 05:24 (five months ago)
I don’t draw/create in these ways, but love that this thread exists, and looo forward to seeing how it develops.
― Clever Message Board User Name (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 9 March 2025 10:16 (five months ago)
thank you for sharing myonga! something i love about projects like yours is how they can open up your eyes to noticing things in daily life, noticing things that are circles or things that are almost circles. it adds a meaningful layer to your daily existence in which you’re actively seeking, heightened awareness of your environment, relating the outer world to your inner expressive self.
― z_tbd, Sunday, 9 March 2025 15:26 (five months ago)
awesome Myonga! i love how when you scale everything together like that it emphasizes certain aspects, like their conceits/convexity/relative shininess, etc
― brimstead, Sunday, 9 March 2025 15:33 (five months ago)
concavity not conceits
― brimstead, Sunday, 9 March 2025 15:34 (five months ago)
Well I'm still very much wedded to figurative realism, which can be a bit limiting, it would be nice to be more confident drawing from imagination, or to get more wildly expressive - as you clearly can. But I'm mostly happily plugging away at portraits and life drawing. Here's some recent ones:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54374843587_780ceca0b5_z.jpg
Could've worked a bit more on the feet there...
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54375957173_c0ede77782_z.jpg
I think I've developed a moderately expressive style with pen that I'm pretty happy with.
As for painting it's early days (still!), been doing simple exercises, still lives, a few portraits - some have gone well, some haven't. It's weird, I'm confident at drawing and with colour mixing, but when it comes to putting paint onto the canvas it often just seems to fall apart somehow. This small and quick one for a friend's kid's birthday went ok at the second attempt:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54376110775_f72e953432_z.jpg
― birming man (ledge), Sunday, 9 March 2025 19:54 (five months ago)
sorry for huge pics.
― birming man (ledge), Sunday, 9 March 2025 20:02 (five months ago)
OK, I hesitated about posting this here, almost didnt do so, 'cause I don't paint or draw or sketch or sculpt;
sorry, i know i neglected to make the thread title sufficiently open-ended- only because that might have taken me all day!!if you are making something and want to talk about it or share it here, please feel welcome.
your montage actually made me laugh! i don’t know why but it tickled me. i wonder what the mylar balloon originally said under “birthday”
it would be nice to be more confident drawing from imagination, or to get more wildly expressive - as you clearly can
i think when i was a kid, i was like the guy in Close Encounters- i would become completely overtaken by an image, as though possessed by it. And i’d just feel the overwhelming urge to duplicate it, over and over again sometimes. And then being ’the kid who draws’ invites those expectations, of doing so imaginatively, or expressively, or in a novel way etc. I wonder if that kind of creativity is actually unnecessary at times, if subjectivity might be enough.
old money casino lounge lizard dogs
A+
― but some albums are more equalized than others (Deflatormouse), Monday, 10 March 2025 00:27 (five months ago)
I had a small revelation recently regarding my difficulty with painting. Basically since taking drawing up again in earnest in my 30s it's always been a social thing. I started off doing a course on urban sketching, some of us carried on meeting up after the class, we started a meetup group and at one point it was the largest drawing meetup group in London, with over 10,000 members! (Which somewhat exaggerates its actual popularity, people just join meetup groups speculatively and never leave.) Then I took up life drawing and found a great group who always went to the pub afterwards, and that branched out into the portraits club which met in a pub. So even when though the drawing might not always have gone well there was an incentive to keep going, to meet friends and new people and be a part of that community. With painting I've done the odd short course but now I'm doing it entirely on my own. There's no social aspect, no other incentive to keep going, loads of opportunity for self criticism and none for group support / advice / encouragement.
― birming man (ledge), Monday, 10 March 2025 13:50 (five months ago)
Thanks for the kind remarks, all...
i wonder what the mylar balloon originally said under “birthday”
It was "...Mother's Day!" when I originally found it lying abandoned, I changed it to "birthday!" to send a photo greeting to my sister, and then ended up keeping the balloon, for sending a few similar messages to others over the next year.
And yes, Cow_Art, that is indeed a sealed green condom package, at 0:34 (just spotted lying on the ground)
― Hongro Hongro Hippies (Myonga Vön Bontee), Tuesday, 11 March 2025 15:57 (five months ago)
https://i.ibb.co/gLYhQ4Vy/pb.jpg
― but some albums are more equalized than others (Deflatormouse), Friday, 14 March 2025 01:38 (five months ago)
Oh that's really nice!!! I love watercolor.
― Cow_Art, Friday, 14 March 2025 03:55 (five months ago)
yeah nice one deflator! snow/ice seems like a very handy subject matter for watercolor, too. i really get into stuff like the light blue rectangle background
― z_tbd, Friday, 14 March 2025 04:03 (five months ago)
I'm trying to make a short clip with a video synthesis app I ran across every night - I've averaged ~1.5 Instagram posts per year since it came out but I'm on like a six night streak now
https://www.instagram.com/p/DG-UCH4O043/
― papal hotwife (milo z), Friday, 14 March 2025 04:59 (five months ago)
not my best but here is a gouache i did at a cabin the other day
https://i.imgur.com/kBKyyKk.jpeg
― z_tbd, Friday, 14 March 2025 16:30 (five months ago)
Poster looks to me like a very competent screenprint or more likely a digital illustration designed to look like a very competent screenprint.
The paint you want is acrylic, which will definitely stain fabrics but won't poison you with fumes, is bold and water-based and easy to work with. Stencils might not get the effect you want though bc unless they are fully pressed down at the sides you'll get leakage instead of a crisp line. Screenprinting could be an option but it's not really cost- or time-effective unless you plan on doing multiple prints.
― salsa shark, Wednesday, 9 April 2025 19:01 (four months ago)
re: maps, I am flattered that people are interested. I'll try to post a few this week, just need to do some quick redacting to remove identifying information. A warning though: I'm usually not doing street map or navigation type stuff, it's more like geography-oriented graphic design than anything you could use for wayfinding (although I would love to do more wayfinding-y maps at some point).
I got into making maps partly because it was something I wanted to learn on a personal level and partly because I wanted to be able to incorporate it into my day job (it's a very useful skill in my industry). QGIS is my main tool but almost every map also requires data in some form or other, and sometimes processing in Excel or R for really big data, and sometimes finishing via desktop publishing software when QGIS's native layout editor isn't quite suitable.
― salsa shark, Wednesday, 9 April 2025 19:08 (four months ago)
yes, i also think it's the latter.
xp ok salsa shark already covered everything i was typing about acrylics, would only add that not all the colors are equally opaque.
you can make silkscreens at home without using photo emulsionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY4pEuSGb1Y
if you specifically want to cut or carve forms then linocut might be a good option, although it's not really the look you're after.
― doe on a hill (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 9 April 2025 19:21 (four months ago)
Salsa, if you want paint but hard clean edges, you can always use masking tape. It comes in different degrees of stick, and if low tack is still messing up your paper you can stick the tape to your clothes a few times to make it less sticky.
There also acrylic airbrush setups but that is outside of my experience and probably more trouble than you want.
You could also experiment with linocut printing which will look entirely different but would sort of act as a reverse stencil. A carved stamp.
I need to post some of the collage stuff i’ve been working on. I like collage a lot. Part of the reason I like your stuff is the tactile quality of the paper glued together.
― Cow_Art, Wednesday, 9 April 2025 19:22 (four months ago)
it's more like geography-oriented graphic design than anything you could use for wayfinding
very intrigued!!
― doe on a hill (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 9 April 2025 19:24 (four months ago)
But yes, acrylic paints are the most practical for what you want to do but it wouldn’t give you clean edges with a stencil; the paint would bleed under. Stencils work best with sprays.
― Cow_Art, Wednesday, 9 April 2025 19:25 (four months ago)
i was gonna say you could touch up the bleed with a brush after
― doe on a hill (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 9 April 2025 19:29 (four months ago)
I just noticed this thread. Lately I have been making visualizations based on metadata from academic publications. Here's one:
https://i.imgur.com/U0OH54A.jpeg
― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Wednesday, 9 April 2025 19:36 (four months ago)
We have an acrylic airbrush. It definitely needs ventilation and can be a bit high maintenance! Not sure I'd recommend it unless someone is getting quite serious about their art
― salsa shark, Wednesday, 9 April 2025 19:38 (four months ago)
Dan, can you go into how that works a little? The end result is lovely.
― Cow_Art, Wednesday, 9 April 2025 20:24 (four months ago)
Sure, I take a piece of the metadata, which comes in the form of a string of characters. I use one of a handful of algorithms I wrote to translate the string into hexadecimal. Some of the algorithms are simple arithmetic I do in my head and some are Python-based involving ASCII values of the individual characters. The hexadecimals get stuck together in "issues" to form the timeline of colors. This kind of thing is what comes out! This is metadata from ~20ish years of publication of this academic journal: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/loi/its
― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Wednesday, 9 April 2025 20:43 (four months ago)
Hard to tell because the printing process dulls the colors a bit, plus it's not a great photo, but there are over 2000 unique colors in that image.
― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Wednesday, 9 April 2025 20:44 (four months ago)
Thansk for the tips upthread peeps! I'll investigate. I'm into this now. It's fun and it's challenging me in ways I've never really attempted to challenge myself on before
― DLC Soundsystem (dog latin), Wednesday, 9 April 2025 22:47 (four months ago)
Dan m, I LOVE this
― DLC Soundsystem (dog latin), Wednesday, 9 April 2025 22:53 (four months ago)
Dan, I’m not smart enough to fully grasp that but you made a very attractive thingy and I like it.
I went to grad school for sculpture at San Jose State and there’s a section of the art department there called CADRE.
Computers in Art Design and Education
They did a lot of really smart artwork but a lot of it looked like shit. Sometimes good stuff would come out of there but a lot of the art was so hung up on the data that they didn’t care to find a way to make it visually interesting.
You’ve done both! You have bested the CADRE department at SJSU!
― Cow_Art, Thursday, 10 April 2025 00:46 (four months ago)
Thanks for all the compliments.
Also glad to learn about CADRE. I'm also in academia and sometimes I think my work leans too scholastic (it's about journals ffs) but it's cool to see others working in a similar vein. Casey Reas at UCLA and Jason Salavon at U Chicago are two of my favorites doing similar things, far cooler than my stuff imho.
― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Thursday, 10 April 2025 01:33 (four months ago)
What kind of prints are they?
― Cow_Art, Thursday, 10 April 2025 01:55 (four months ago)
https://i.ibb.co/HLPV0fds/Collage-2.jpg
― Cow_Art, Thursday, 10 April 2025 02:04 (four months ago)
https://i.ibb.co/ZR4CY1wJ/Collage-3.jpg
― Cow_Art, Thursday, 10 April 2025 02:06 (four months ago)
https://i.ibb.co/2YsVRH56/Collages.jpg
My goal is to make 99 collages and then pick my favorite ones and paint them. Here's a photo of some of them hung up at our old place for a sense of scale. 95% of the imagery is from old National Geographics, cut up and glued down with an Uhu glue stick.
I haven't counted them in a while, but I'm probably getting close to 50. I've been working on them since 2017. I started doing collage stuff because it's easy to do at home, nontoxic, and I thought I could make a bunch of them really fast. Turns out I work slow no matter what. Sometimes I start building up imagery and most of it gets covered up later.
― Cow_Art, Thursday, 10 April 2025 02:11 (four months ago)
https://i.ibb.co/5WyrHwjg/Collage-1.jpg
Last one for now. "Sitting On A Pile Of Gold". It's hard not to title everything after songs.
― Cow_Art, Thursday, 10 April 2025 02:14 (four months ago)
― Cow_Art, Wednesday, April 9, 2025 8:55 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
Just the big inkjet we have at work, on some heavy cardstock.
I like that you're making a series, btw. I have 40 or so other color timelines and most are pretty boring, but I enjoy comparing the results of the process to each other.
― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Thursday, 10 April 2025 02:27 (four months ago)
Hey dan, that’s beautiful. I have a friend whose work uses generative modeling to mimic biological processes, influenced by the “morphogenetic” art of Andy Lomas, deskreptiv and others. He says that if he tried to model the form without understanding the process that gives rise to it, it would never be as beautiful as the natural world (he has done plants and corals). I think this is a liminal space between art and research that’s very exciting. for one thing, it proposes a potential alternative to “traditional art”. There’s a question in there somewhere. I guess I’m wondering if you likewise use algorithms to make something more beautiful than you could design, because I also find it more beautiful than legible. or is there a key, or some literacy requirement?
― doe on a hill (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 10 April 2025 04:32 (four months ago)
95% of the imagery is from old National Geographics, cut up and glued down with an Uhu glue stick.
That's great, assumed the first 2 were huge until I saw the third pic. these designs will lend themselves very well to large scale imo if that's what you have in mind for the eventual paintings!
― doe on a hill (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 10 April 2025 04:43 (four months ago)
Hey dan, that’s beautiful.I have a friend whose work uses generative modeling to mimic biological processes, influenced by the “morphogenetic” art of Andy Lomas, deskreptiv and others. He says that if he tried to model the form without understanding the process that gives rise to it, it would never be as beautiful as the natural world (he has done plants and corals). I think this is a liminal space between art and research that’s very exciting. for one thing, it proposes a potential alternative to “traditional art”.There’s a question in there somewhere. I guess I’m wondering if you likewise use algorithms to make something more beautiful than you could design, because I also find it more beautiful than legible. or is there a key, or some literacy requirement?― doe on a hill (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, April 9, 2025 11:32 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
― doe on a hill (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, April 9, 2025 11:32 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
Thank you. Your friend's work sounds interesting and thanks for sharing Lomas and deskreptiv—I find I am surprisingly out of touch with contemporary work since I started teaching!
My process has evolved in this series from simple 1:1 transfer of metadata into writing algorithms to respond to new forms in the data… hope that makes sense. For example, initially the data I was working with was just six numbers in a string, so that directly translates to a hex color (https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/how-hex-colors-work). Then I started encountering the same type of data that was written a different way: more numbers, the addition of letters and special characters like _underscores_, etc, so I had to figure out how to wrangle those into a form I could use. It started as simple math but then I moved to using scripts to do it faster than I could in my head. To actually get around to answering your question, I don't know if it's making something more beautiful than I could design, but I definitely get different results with different algorithmic methods and some look better than others.
As for literacy, I have made some that feature text interpretations of some aspects of the publication I'm visualizing. Here's one of those and it also uses three different algorithmic processes to respond to different data forms.
https://i.imgur.com/YqmlXm1.jpeg
― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Thursday, 10 April 2025 13:21 (four months ago)
I like those, it's a great idea and and cool end result.
Last night I was portrait drawing for money. A fundraising for cubs, low key and low money, 50p-£1 for a five minute portrait. I sat there for ten minutes with no takers then suddenly it was non stop for the next 90 minutes. I've done loads of 15 minute portraits, I'm ok with ten and I have done that live once before, five is something else and drawing kids can be a challenge, they can't always sit still (though most of them did) and they have different proportions, if you're not careful you can make them look too grown up. In theory it was low pressure but it felt pretty intense, by the end my head was buzzing. All the drawings turned out pretty well though!
― constant gravy (ledge), Friday, 11 April 2025 13:15 (four months ago)
maps: https://imgur.com/a/xFt3INO
― salsa shark, Saturday, 12 April 2025 12:19 (four months ago)
Oooh, these are ace. The inverted topography one gave me (enjoyable) vertigo, and I laughed out loud at the optimising trick or treat map.
― emil.y, Saturday, 12 April 2025 12:27 (four months ago)
i’m putting on a wordless experimental/diy play tonight called doctor magic, and it involves the amputation of this arm (three times actually, lol). acrylic and gouache on some sort of bendable/posable mesh covered children’s arm a friend loaned to me
https://i.imgur.com/jmqDgrG.jpeg
― z_tbd, Sunday, 13 April 2025 16:29 (four months ago)
https://i.imgur.com/psklLRS.jpeg
― z_tbd, Sunday, 20 April 2025 06:33 (four months ago)
How did Doctor Magic go??
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Sunday, 20 April 2025 07:02 (four months ago)
Wow violent!I love how that arm is all "to hell with local color"
The optimising trick or treat map (which i adore) reminded me of the intro to Everything Sings where they said the jack o lantern map might prove useful to vadals if only it didn't require so much planning.
Dan, thank you and sorry for asking so many dumb questions. That is also a lovely image.
― doe on a hill (Deflatormouse), Sunday, 20 April 2025 17:13 (four months ago)
*vandals
Trick or treat is an inner warzone between spontaneity and efficiency
― doe on a hill (Deflatormouse), Sunday, 20 April 2025 17:16 (four months ago)
xp lavator
let’s just say…the arm was successfully amputated…three times *doctor magic music plays*
https://i.imgur.com/8zttIRL.png
― z_tbd, Sunday, 20 April 2025 22:28 (four months ago)
https://i.ibb.co/hJ5Qf4hY/Joseph-Cowart-A-New-World.jpg
― Cow_Art, Monday, 21 April 2025 00:42 (four months ago)
https://i.ibb.co/N6KSzGCr/Joseph-Cowart-Polyps-Under-Scrutiny.jpg
― Cow_Art, Monday, 21 April 2025 00:44 (four months ago)
more like cow heart, amirite
― budo jeru, Monday, 21 April 2025 15:41 (four months ago)
yeah, love these cow art!
― z_tbd, Monday, 21 April 2025 16:22 (four months ago)
same!
― budo jeru, Tuesday, 22 April 2025 14:11 (four months ago)
Thanks! That last one is called “Polyps Under Scrutiny.”
― Cow_Art, Tuesday, 22 April 2025 14:35 (four months ago)
the one with the vertical yellow stripes reminds me of a painting by Maria Helena Vieira da Silva
― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Tuesday, 22 April 2025 14:57 (four months ago)
https://i.imgur.com/2zWlu6x.jpeg
― z_tbd, Sunday, 27 April 2025 04:48 (four months ago)
been meaning to update for a while but it takes too long. the short version is, i’ve resisted the urge to start making conceptual art again and this is what i’ve been doing instead
https://i.ibb.co/QjC8yypH/image.jpg
― doe on a hill (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 30 April 2025 19:02 (three months ago)
Breeding Trump-haired mole rats?
― Cow_Art, Wednesday, 30 April 2025 20:55 (three months ago)
‘fraid so, soon i’ll have an army
― doe on a hill (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 30 April 2025 22:04 (three months ago)
https://i.ibb.co/wN9dV9PK/Joseph-Cowart-Transnmission.jpg
― Cow_Art, Wednesday, 30 April 2025 22:14 (three months ago)
ooh
― doe on a hill (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 30 April 2025 22:19 (three months ago)
love that
― a hoy hoy, Thursday, 1 May 2025 10:37 (three months ago)
showing these in a few days at a gallery opening but mainly as an excuse to improvise snare drum solos under a blanket for 20 minutes
https://i.imgur.com/CL41G7I.jpeg
― z_tbd, Tuesday, 1 July 2025 02:51 (one month ago)