rat wins!

rat wins!

week of drawings

Here's the highlights of a fairly decent week of drawing. One afternoon in anatomy class and one evening in open life drawing. I haven't posted any of these in a while, and a massive pile of drawings has accumulated in the past few months. Staring down the pile as I was gearing up to go through them and toss and save, I realized how short-lived they will be, as they're on newsprint. Motivated by that thought, these will at least see the light of another day. :-)

These are drawings of the torso musculature from class. Excessive labeling to help my remember what is what.






This is a gesture I liked. I'm usually sloppy with them and use them as exercise more than anything else, but this has a nice stylization. It reminds me of some character icons from a film I was close to but did not work on.



And a few more from open life drawing.





It's always fun to find open life drawings that I like after the fact. I haven't been thinking about the drawings themselves much lately so much the act of drawing. Subtle exaggeration was my personal exercise for the evening.

Is creative software too precise?

I had a conversation last week with MM about the downsides of creative software and he brought up an interesting point. First, I'll note that he's coming from a creative background and has only recently added computer tools to his mix. He's been trying some painting software, and finds it sort of bland to work with because of its over-predictability and lack of interesting response.

We design creative software to give users exactly what they specify, but this isn't really how traditional media works. I'm going to use drawing as an example, since I draw frequently (MM used watercolor, which is more extreme).

Some drawings are destined to be rigid, precise studies that are created with the goal of realistically matching the appearance of the subject. Others are scribbles quickly jotted down to remember the shape of things. Some are refined, clean illustrations that communicate a concept. Others are loosely drawn figures where only a few important features are rendered with precision. It seems to me that the majority of today's artists see the latter as far more interesting. These approaches leave breathing room; that is, room for personal expression of the subject and greater freedom for the artist's style to come through. My own work, when I am at my strongest, feels like a dance. The drawing instrument is precise only when needed, and the way I partially relax my arm and hand comes through the rest of the time. This is different than how anyone else does it.

The media also comes into play here, and this is the big thing MM brought up. Every surface you create on, every marking tool you use, has a certain precision to it. More interestingly, it has a certain imprecision. The imprecision is your dance partner, in a way, as you create. This can be the paper, the pen, the conte, the water and pigment mix, or even the ricketiness of the easel on which you're working. These all introduce forms of imprecision. As a computer scientist, I'd be tempted to say that one of the benefits of software is that this can all be avoided. But is it good to avoid? As a creative person, your dance partner takes you in new directions and spawns new ideas as you work. An unintended line from a crease in the next sheet of paper might lead to part of an imaginary setting. A line that doesn't quite follow the actual subject's form can lead to an exaggeration study. Watercolor pigment that spreads in a particular way can lead to a style of mark--a symbol--for representing something with partial abstraction.

Does this mean that this imprecision is always good? No. Sometimes we need to avoid it. In my case, by working slowly and being careful. I'm always more careful with eyes, unless I don't have the time. Then they become quick, broad marks that leave most of the content to your imagination. In software, maybe it's good to look into creating imprecision in a controlled way. Something to put in place that can be turned down or off as desired. I've seen it in some features of 3D software, but it's missing all over the place in most of the tools we use day to day. Maybe it's hard to design in a way that is predictable and controllable. In the places I have seen it, it certainly is hard to work with.

numbers stations

Last night I discovered numbers stations. I've had a compilation of them on almost non-stop since then.

Reminiscent of a mix of ice cream truck music and the voice of a demon counting down your days, they have this odd back-and-forth quality to them that is quite musical in structure. A 4-disc compilation, The Conet Project can be downloaded for free: http://www.irdial.com/conet.htm

The structure sort of tugs you off balance, as though you're looking over a near-vertical cliff, standing at the edge. A calm and rigidly structed recitation of single digits, intermingled with simple, calming melodies and the ambience of short wave radio.

Excellent music to work too. Up there with Björk's Drawing Resraint 9 score. Like that score, I know a number of people who would absolutely love this and a number of people who would absolutely hate it. I like it enough to spend this time writing about it.

Mid-90's Meat Beat Manifesto without the bass, vocal, synthesizers, and percussion.

The score to discs is a collection of off-kilter sounds meant to convey a certain feeling, and this seems to be a more purist form of it.

Yesterday I was going through my junk mail folder, and found a message in jibberish that was almost visually poetic if you could get past the absurdity of what it was on the surface.

SNOW!!!

It's that first real snow of the year. Not the first time flakes come down, or the first time a few stick to the ground without melting. But that first magical snow. The snow that feels warm even though it's blistering cold and blowing right in your face. The kind of snow that calls for a hot chocolate when you get inside. The kind of snow that makes you want to take a walk outside at 3 in the morning watching in blow around, turning even piles of litter into mounds and waves of peace. The kind of snow that sticks to your hair and freezes in place. Snow that brings hope and turns the darkest time of year into the brightest.

this is earth

an implication of earth, a shade of earth, a joke told about earth, a speaking of earth's life, or maybe just a spin on the old wheel of chance.

discs

I made an abstract animation yesterday, called "discs." It still has a few tweaks to go in the compression and sound mix, but until then, here's some stills from it. They don't bring out the motion, which was much more the focus, but these are some kinda fun static frames.

shapes

I've been talking and thinking about shapes a lot lately. More in an abstract sense than in the literal meaning of "shape." Here's a couple That were doodled a few days back. TH added a lot of the detail work to the top-left shape. And Neil Young was playing in the environment, so that got doodled in a bit too.

burst!

just a quick burst of color! a one!

siggraph papers countdown widget

I was stumped on something for a moment, so I started this new Dashcode thing and made a Dashboard countdown-to-the-siggraph-deadline timer. Hour correctness is set to Pacific time, but it'll tell you how many days are left correctly. :-)

Here you go.

And I got un-stumped while I was working on it!