Pen Plotter & Watercolor Dailies

I am doing some experiments in creative consistency. Today is Sunday. Each day this week, I am going to make one generative drawing in a series. There will be seven drawings in the series, and they will all be made using the same (or a similar) process. The process I want to explore involves combining generative art and the axidraw with water-soluble fountain pen ink and watercolors.

Day One

Here is the result for day 1, before and after water colors:

I don’t like these results much. The pen drawing is messy, and the watercolor felt unintentional and disconnected. I wasn’t really sure what my plan was. But the goal of this experiment is to iterate, trust the process. What can i do different tomorrow?

I think tomorrow I will try using water-soluble fountain pen ink. That was my original plan, but i wasn’t set up for it. I hope it will connect the pen and the watercolor more. I will go lighter on the fill as well, and introduce some more variation in the design.

I think this piece is about something like the boundary between control and uncertainty. Maybe I’ll try putting the colors in a different place. Maybe there should be some white space remaining. Maybe I should invert the positive and negative space. Maybe I should allow for more variation in the fill distributions across the vertical dimension of the piece.

Day Two

Here is the result for day 2; I wound up doing two today. I also started naming them.

These are still pretty simple in terms of outputs, but I am starting to find them a bit more interesting. I used the water soluble ink and used a watercolor brush to paint just water on to the canvas before and as the drawing was happening. In general, I am interested in work that emerges from some complex interaction of machine, human, and natural elements like water.

In this process, the routing of the pen plotting algorithm and the application of volume of the water (and its rate of drying) matter a lot. Something I found interesting is layering, and so i want to think about how to explore that more.

What else? How might I make this more interesting? More colors, more feedback? More complexity in the digital design? Perhaps the application of the water might be even more dynamic and interactive.

Day Three

Today’s first experiment involves some automatic drawing with watercolor pencils. The result is chaotic and not too appealing for me, but there’s something conceptually interesting about the idea of combining human and machine automatism, alongside an injection of natural randomness (water).

In my second experiment of the day, I explored using watercolors again directly, here adding bits of sage green pigment.

Some bits of this get too heavy for me; but I like other bits somewhat more – mainly the places where the regimented squares peek through in “shadow” and/or blend with the sage pigment. Here is a detail:

Maybe I wille explore some more deliberate placement of the water on the canvas.

Day Four

Today i returned to direct watercolor. I generated the plotter design and then made some watercolor forms by hand loosely related to the negative space in the generative design. I used heavy water and left it pooled on the canvas, and then plotted into it. I used some salt granules to explore creating different textures in the watercolor. Here is the result:

In the algorithm, I lightened the amount of fills, and allowed for partial squares. I think less fill was good in this scale to not overwhelm the watercolor. I continue to be most interested in the boundary areas in these designs – e.g. the squares plotted into pooled water leaving hazy outlines. I also like the color variation here, expressing the blue-greenish undertones of the black ink and also their dilution and mixture with the water and watercolor pigments. I want maybe to explore more layering, whether of color or the plotted work.

Day Five

More watercolor today.

I like some of the layering and blending in this one. I am interested in exploring a process with more layering.

Day Six

Watercolor greens and blues, a bit of salt, and pulling back on volume.

Day Seven

I was walking the other day with Elspeth and we went past this curb we call the “curb of requirement”, which is variously populated with all sorts of crafty or collectible odds and ends. On that day there was a wide range of sheet music laid out, so I picked up a book of Prokofiev piano solos, with the idea of integrating it into this work. I like allowing the world’s spontanaeity to partially direct my creative explorations, and point me in directions I might not otherwise explore.

I also explored a bit more layering and color variation in this sketch which I think is good. For me, I think the direction to take this process probably involves more texture, layering, and depth, and perhaps a slightly larger piece that would allow for more complexity. I have been wondering too about exploring other colors of fountain pen ink (or even black inks with different color undertones) for different layers.

Conclusion

I decided that to end this experiment, I want to make a little Instagram / Tik Tok video reflecting on my experiments here. Here is the video:

Someone commented on the video using the term “cyborg art” which I relate to. It makes me want to re-read A Cyborg Manifesto and other Haraway which is perpetually in the background of my thinking. I was also reminded of this poem that I co-created with an LLM a while back about making art with machines:

Who is creator - machine or me?
Neurons, circuits, shared electricity.
It beeps, I whir; we click into place
I share its metal arm, we trace
The lines together, dance of creation -
Is this art or automation?
Cyborg muse or an empty mind,
Is it art if it’s not all mine?