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.

You can see it for sale here: Jelly Roll Morton as a Teenager

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.

A direct link to this painting is at…

Washington National Cathedral Painting

Pindar

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. A video can also be seen at www.vanarman.com.

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 www.vanarman.com.

I accept commissions and if you want to see the painting you purchase being painted, I can even arrange to tell you when the robot will be painting it. I also save a video of all the files so you will even be able to see the art work get painted step by step. Just drop me an email at pindar@pindar.org. You can also visit my store at http://stores.ebay.com/robopainter.

Pindar

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.  If you are interested in a large scale modern portrait, drop me an email at pindar@pindar.org.

Pindar

Bon Iver album covers painted by my robot.

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. 

Pindar

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…

Pindar

In preperation for the upcoming DC Freshly Squeezed exhibition, I am having my painting art robot paint more and more of my hand drawn robots.  Originally, I was calling this my robot in shades series, but over time the shades have become gasmasks.  In fact the last couple of robots I have drawn or painted all have gasmasks.  I would love to tell you it was symbolic for something like “man’s hubris in its destruction of the environment,”  but there is no symbolism.  They are just pictures of robot’s with gasmasks. 

This particular painting set, the top of which was hand painted, and the bottom which was painted by my robot, is a take off of those old robotech cartoons.  It is a robotech style robot with a gasmask.  While thinking about it I realized that Robotech as transforming robots far pre-dated Transformers, but for some reasons Transformers are more popular.  It must have something to do with the fact that Transformers are robots in and of themselves, while robotech robots were driven by humans. 

Anyways, like all my art work, this is for sale on my online store.  See the links on the sidebar.  Also it will be on display at DC Freshly Squeezed (Opening Night September 13).  See my previous blogs for the flier…

Pindar

One of the most popular subjects for paintings by Zanelle, my painting robot, is famous robots from popular culture.

C-3PO Triptych, 40″x16″, Acrylic on Three Canvases

Though not as popular as R2-D2 paintings, C-3PO definitely has his fans.  This painting was made by my painting robot using a scan algorithm.  All strokes are perfectly vertical.  this piece has been on exhibition at the Corcoran alongside a similar R2-D2 piece that sold.  All my art work is for sale, of course.  Check out my online store (link in the sidebar) for purchase information…

Pindar

I have made another robotic painting of a previously hand painted original.  The subject is “nobot” which I have featured in a previous blog posting.  The two paintings are below.

These paintings as well as multiple others will be showcased at an upcoming exhibition called DC Freshly Squeezed in Washington DC on September 13, 2008.  I will have paintings in the show priced between $100 and $1200.  Also check out my ebay store (link in sidebar) to see prices on my other art.

Pindar

My recent work begins with an idea, and then a single hand painted image.  In this case a robotic octopus wearing a gas mask.  The image is below…

Robotic Octopus with Gas Mask, 9″x12″, Acrylic on Canvas

 Then based on this image, I create several robotic painted prints.  When I say prints, printmakers say it is not a print.  When I call these paintings, painters tell me they are not paintings.  I am not sure what they are, I just like doing them.  Below are three canvases painted by my robot, based on the original hand painted canvas.

Robotic Octopus with Gas Mask, 60″x24″, Acrylic on Canvas

This triptych is much larger than the original and will be on display at my next group exhibition.  See my last post for details of when and where…

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