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I Paint with a Laser

I was painting today, or rather removing the paint from a few days ago.  The process continues to evolve, and I did finally get a decent picture of my first painting. It is very high contrast, and I have to say I didn’t have much control.  This is a watercolor with a rather haphazard application of paint. It is tentatively titled “Making Marx on Canvas.”

marx and me

I have updated my process and am now using acrylics.  The reason for my switch has more to do with opportunity than anything else.  That is to say that the store I went to on Monday didn’t have a good supply of watercolors, but was overflowing with inexpensive acrylics.  At some point, if this becomes an ongoing thing I will take my materials more seriously, but at the moment cheap acrylics are serving me well.

I spent the first hour aclimating to the new materials and trying to figure out what colors I could get out of it, I realized that I was in an iterative proces (multiple runs with the laser) and started with gradients at 20%.  The material proved quite resiliant but after 4 passes I had taken off the black layer on top and revealed the blue underneath.  This was encouraging, but I also realized that I did not have time to do 4 passes to get a blue.  I may incorporate this in the future, but moved along to boxes all black 100%, 80%, 60% and 20% (oops). I upped the power to 40% and did up to 4 passes. This revealed almost all the way to the white canvas.  It occurs to me that I could do another pass and clean off most of the paint for a white, but I am also getting into “baking the canvas” territory which would yield a pleasing sepia or brown but not a white.

I then did a color separation on my image. (note too that in my files I had to invert the image because of the reductive process)

This is the black which shows a pretty good representation of the tonal range.  The reason behind doing a color separation is that I realized that when I am using the laser I am able to strip away about a layer of paint, and have the ability to do tuning.

after the first pass, I had the power pretty low (again about 40% and the results are consistent with my test patches.  I can now see the image and wanted to start cutting deeper looking for the white. I noticed that even a little laser destroys the luster of the black.  I need to watch this in the next painting.

I used the yellow channel next and started tuning the channel image.

The magenta channel was next, and cyan.

Thinking it was too dark I attempted to tune it with another pass with the adjusted black layer.

The result is quite pleasing, and looking back at the original SL image, I really like how the process favors the 3d of the avatar, the images in the back still look flat, but I have all of my colors revealed in the final painting.

I ran out of time on the laser, but got a result that is wonderful.  It is “Mona Lisa” dark and shows the original texture of the canvas.

The work is titled “Malcolm in the Middle” and that is Rabelais on the right.

I paint with lasers.

CADRE build (Week 1)

This is what learning is about.

After one week at the TechShop I am still totally excited, I feel like I am on the all-star team with a bunch of artists and students that I respect and whose company I enjoy.  This however also qualifies as the ultimate unclass. (http://unclasses.org/classes/452) and I have an agenda.  This time I am a peer in learning and less of a teacher. I have however taken up the mantle of a community organizer and try to keep up with everyone and do some cheerleading as we only have a month to work here.

Our first meeting was at noon on Tuesday.  Much though I hate it I was late to the meeting because Steve was on auto-pilot and headed towards Jameco.  We eventually got turned back around and had a nice meet and greet and tour of the TechShop.  It was great to feel like the new kid in the playground again, and after a look around we scheduled classes and left.

On Wed Dan, Steve, Dave and I took the laser class with the lovely and talented Laura Mappin.

On Thursday we had our first potluck, I made beans and rice and Laura was able to join us as well.

The food was good, the company was excellent and then our very own Steve Durie led us in a workshop where we build blinky bots.  We got some SBU’s (Safety and Basic Use classes) in (4 of us on laser, vinyl, and plasma cutter) and then Saturday got our first block of laser time and we shared it.  Four of us ended up using the 2 blocks of time:

Santa Steve made festive Christmas gifts

Dan etched some wood with a family photo.

After our laser time we were fortunate enough to happen upon the textile and laser meetups at the TechShop. I had a chance to play with some canvas on a board which was super painful to cut through, and etching an image took 4 passes with the laser on 40% power.  If the power went higher the gesso seemed to give off a gas that flamed up.

We met again this Tuesday after Jenene and I tried to go to Sacremento (that darn 101 hates us). We then had our next block of laser time after our meetup at noon. At the meeting we tossed around the idea of creating lamps for the exhibit at the beginning of spring.  We have yet to hear from everyone, but it seems like a good project.  We also booked three sessions back to back for the laser from 1-7 pm.  Because of this I managed to get my first project cut and do some experimentation with the canvas.  I applied layers of yellow, red, and blue in both watercolor and acrylic.  I then lased off portions of it in “etch” mode. Test results are here next to my newly coated yellow canvas.  I am thinking this will take a while to  iron out the materials, but am excited by the results so far.

Our brave band will not meet this Thursday as it is x-mas eve, we are planning our next potluck on Saturday (when we have another laser block).  I have also ordered some super bright LED’s for my lamp.

Now we just need the arduino class.

I made a quick video last night showing some of the paper work I did on the laser.

PayPal Still Sucks

What is wrong with PayPal?

Today I tried to donate money to some deserving causes and I got blocked.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brilliant/have-sticks-will-travel-world-tour

https://rhizome.org/support/about_you.php

http://turbulence.org/

At first PayPal said that my account was flagged, that they were trying to protect me from fraud, pretty much your standart phishing email except it came from paypal and didn’t have any links.

I logged in to paypal and it wants all this information, the first thing it demands is my full credit card number, then makes me change my password and my extra questions then get this it tells me this is a random thing and that the note they sent was BS. they just wanted to re-verify me.

Okay, I am pissed. I figure I will go ahead and do it, but then I am hit with their stupid system, they are asking for location information to verify, they will not accept my cell phone and appearantly my lifestyle is such that I have little to offer.

Now I have been a customer for 5 years, and never had a problem, why all this now? And why such a damn unfriendly system? I mean I have spent more than an hour throwing myself at this and I am coming to the opinion that it just might not be worth it.

Why must I confirm location for a 5 year old paypal account?

I end up re re re confirming my credit card and they charge me $1.95 that I have to go to my statement to find a code number… WTF? 4 days before xmas when I am trying to buy something, and of course there is no way to reach customer service for something that would be pretty easy with a live person on the phone.

This feels like the “add bank account to verify” scam that I refuse to play.

Oh yeah, and so now paypal is blocking my credit card from being used too… how wonderful. 2 hours and counting

CADRE build day 3

Our first meal together.

noon2noon decompression

Saturday Afternoon at 12:01 we were out of Works San Jose, we had just spent 24 hours of gruelling art making.

The whole evening was fun and there were plenty of memorable moments, like the high school band that had their parents carry their instruments out sooo serious, but fun nonetheless.

Overall the music was tight, the Indian band created an amazing atmosphere, and the emo kids that played good music but just too loud that chased away most of the crowd.  Then there was the house band Haptic Synapses who played an all too short set.  At least they hung around around to do some 1am noodling on the music box.

It was also really cool kicking it with Charles about the 13″ MBP. In fact there were a couple of really good conversations that night and I ended up really really liking the survivors who shall be listed here:

I know I am missing people here, if anyone knows them (from the pictures or otherwise) please help and I shall update. I also have to follow up with the numbers which we won’t know for a few days yet I am sure. We have left the chip-in open till the end of the month http://works.chipin.com/works-san-jose.

I was working on embedding these but wordpress is being difficult, so I may update, but until then ustream links:

beginning  noon2noon http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2711644

papercraft with the art inspector http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2713527

DC and the French http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2714531

bad beuys http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2715273

9:27 pm http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2715418

1:46 am http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2716581

finis http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2719363 (see 12:30 onward)

DIWO – Do It With Others / CADRE build

In keeping with the spirit of the unclass that I ran this semester (on a furlough day shhhh) I couldn’t pass up this opportunity at the TechShop. When we were finishing our second tour for Art74 Robert came up to us and told us about the gift membership. This is such an amazing deal that I realized I wanted to bring the community into it. This is a self-guided, shoulder to cry on, sort of learning environment where we benefit from the professional skills related classes at the TechShop. This will not tell you what to do or make assignments, but provide an excited critical community to work with.

This session is open to anyone (of course) but students wanting to get credit will need to make a serious committment (90 hours for a 3 credit studio class). Steve Durie is co-facilitating and has mad programming and electronics skills, between the two of us there should be enough faculty “supervision.” There is also the expectation that students at SJSU will produce something, and there may be a gallery show in the art building at the beginning of the Spring 10 semester.

I hate to even think of it as a class, this is to be driven by ambition, no one has to show up, and no one has to work, but it is a great opportunity. This will be the unclass to rule them all:

CADRE build

A one month unclass focused on building objects, creating community, and collaborating to make art. CADRE faculty Steve Durie and James Morgan are facilitating the month long community/building event which will run from approximately December 15 to January 15 at the TechShop in Menlo Park.

Note TechShop Membership required (but see below for $40 intro deal).

This is inspired by the TechShop’s gift membership (http://techshop.ws/gift.html) which includes a month’s worth of time on-site in Menlo Park, access to the massive amount of CNC machinery, the maker community and two beginning classes.

The goals are simple:

• work hard
• build objects
• share what you know
• choose what you learn
• build networks and community
• collaborate

I know I have some projects I want to get done over the break, and I know it will be easier and more fun for me if I can bounce my ideas off of other people and get regular critique.

The session is open to anyone, and we are making arrangements to count the time towards class hours, but will need to talk to each person to see just how that fits.

Don’t have a project yet? Not a problem, however we do not know how long this offer will last. We are talking with other artists about presenting mini-workshops on cool stuff too, but this experience will be guided by those that participate. (possible topics: bug-bot, arduino/sensor, inflatable, inDesign, paper-craft, nothing definite yet)

what you need:

• sign up for the unclass http://unclasses.org/classes/452 (this is how we are tracking students)
• contact us – james – at – factorynoir – dot – com or stevedurie – at – me – dot – com
• sign up for a gift membership at http://techshop.ws/gift.html note that this deal is for new members but the unclass is open to anyone with a TechShop membership
• self motivation

DDR Shenanigans F09

The Mortal Kombat Dance Off was the culmination of our experimentation with the Dance Dance Revolution game pads this semester. John Pierre Bruneau and I held a single elimination Mortal Kombat tournament at the end of October.

MKDDR came about in response to the not so successful WoW and DDR combination with the Interactive Whiteboard which may or may not be making a comeback next semester.

The tournament took about 2 hours and featured many stars from both the SJSU Game Developers Club and the CADRE Laboratory for New Media.  We are happy to crown our first champion Jeffrey Kam who won in a close call 2-1 decision.

Please forgive the crunchiness of the video, it was a borrowed camera. Edited by JP who did an amazing job considering (see more of his vids at artfail or follow him on twitter @johnpierre).

Mapping the joysticks to the game pads was pretty straight forward

In retrospect there are a few lessons learned:

1. allow more time for practice – that was how people learned their moves
2. setup better for the camera – and test
3. make sure the camera works
4. coaches make a difference (for special moves)

The DDR pads work much better with a joystick based game though I think a good mapping would help WoW.

Here is the vid from the first experiment if you missed it, note that the title includes the word naked to get more hitz, when in fact it is more of a beach mage duel…

works/san jose presents ‘noon2noon’, a 24-hour art marathon: make art, buy art, support works

Works San Jose is still forming teams for our round the clock marathon style fund raiser (which will be broadcast to the net at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/works-live ) – have your loved ones watch you at work, make art, connect with the community, have fun…

Works/San Jose presents ‘noon2noon’–a 24 hour art marathon beginning at noon First Friday, December 4th and continuing until Saturday, December 5th. We are seeking teams or individual artists who will be sponsored during a lock-in to create art to sell in a benefit for works/san jose.

How do you get involved?

1. SIGN-UP: Contact Stephanie Battle at Works/San Jose. Call (408)286-6800 or write to gallery@workssanjose.org. You can also sign up on Thursday between 12-7pm at Works/San Jose.
2. ARTISTS/TEAMS: Drop off supplies and set up times are:  Thursday 12-7pm and Friday beginning at 12noon. Each team will be given a booth/area of the gallery that will include floor and wall space. Please bring art to display, preferably art for sale!
3. PERFORMERS: Performance area will be set up day of event. Basic mic will be available. Contact Stephanie to find out more about time of sets.
4. THIS IS A FUNDRAISER! We are asking each artist to commit to raising at least $25 for Works/San Jose! This can be done through sponsorship of a team or donating 50% of sales to Works/San Jose.
5. WHAT IS IN IT FOR YOU? Over 1000 visitors on First Friday will get to see your artwork, network with some of the greatest artists in Silicon Valley, sell some artwork to people for the holidays, hang out in our VIP Artist Lounge with food, movies, and coffee!

This event will be streaming live online for those of you who are unable to join us on First Friday.

Questions? Contact Stephanie Battle our Gallery Coordinator at (408)286-6800

Inflatables with @slowe

Sarah Lowe is the best builder / 3d / materials person I know. I was excited to have the opportunity for her to come and do a guest lecture in the Art 74 classes I teach.

We led up to the project by covering Google Sketchup, and exporting models into paper via Pepakura

On Tuesday November 24th we made two models, one of mr teapot in section 3 and the cesar chaves arch in section 2.  The gallery below has choice images taken by both Ali Sajjadi and Cookie Evans.