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…