Kinda like university students going on strike

 art, Crazy, Hmm..., Meh., news, politics, science  No Responses »
Dec 192022
 

Artists stage mass protest against AI-generated artwork on ArtStation

 

At best they’ll *slightly* delay the development and deployment of AI that will render them utterly obsolete. Welcome to being just like everybody else.

So wouldn’t it make sense, rather than *not* producing art right now, to instead take this time to crank out as much art, and the best art, so that they can to try to maximize their income potential while they actually can? Artists are no more going to prevent the introduction of AI art than factory workers prevented automation.

 Posted by at 11:37 pm

Bell BAT LHX art

 aircraft, art, history, projects  No Responses »
Dec 192022
 

Artwork circa 1983 depicting the Bell BAT (“Bell Advanced Tiltrotor”… so… ummm… the “Bell Bell Advanced Tiltrotor”) single-seat small military tiltrotor designed to compete in the LHX program. It is shown here in two modes. The nearest aircraft is in full forward flight; the aircraft in the background is hovering. Both are in the process of firing unknown anti-tank missiles at a column of Soviet armor.

 Posted by at 10:27 am

Cyanotype test 4

 art, awesomeness, cyanotype blueprints, drawings, history, Hmm..., spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 182022
 

Ran two prints today. The second one, the 4th test of the new setup, turned out to be pretty much there with just a few minor issues. The main issue I’m looking at now is getting proper coverage of the paper. For whatever reason, the cyanotyping fluid doesn’t really like the vellum paper and you get occasional blotchiness. This was a constant problem before, and was solved largely by tossing prints that weren’t up to code. Experiments will continue…

 Posted by at 12:46 pm

Cyanotype: Test 2

 art, awesomeness, cyanotype blueprints, drawings, history, news, rockets  No Responses »
Dec 162022
 

Todays test involved mounting the UV light bar to a crude frame and just letting it run, not waving it over the print like an idjit. As you can see most of it is pretty uniform; the end of the print that was furthest from the light bar wasn’t adequately exposed. However, come the weekend two more UV lights will arrive and will extend the reach.

 

The learning curve this time around is going *much* faster than the first time. This should probably not be a surprise, but it’s nice to see that things are trending quickly in the correct direction.

 

 Posted by at 6:32 am

First cyanotype test

 art, awesomeness, cyanotype blueprints, drawings, Hmm..., news  No Responses »
Dec 152022
 

The cyanotype setup in Utah relied on direct sunlight to process the image. But the sun is difficult to find here in Illinois in December, so I decided to give technology a try. When I originally set up in 2014, this wasn’t really an option, but Amazon now has 100 watt LED UV light bars for only $30, so I decided to try one. The result is shown below:

 

 

Clearly, it looks terrible. But I judged it to be a rampaging success: this was achieved via the crude process of simply waving it over the paper and the transparency by hand for five minutes. My goal was not a pristine cyanotype, but  proof that the UV actually worked to process the image. Where it shined adequately brightly for long enough, it really did the job. So I went ahead and ordered two more. I will build a framework to hold them over the print, boxed in with reflectors. Some experimentation to dial everything in, but at this point I’m quite optimistic that a technological solution will make this work reliably repeatably.

 

On the other hand: the UV light bars are Chinese. So… explosions? Sudden random changes in wavelength? Burst into flames? Microphones directly to the MSS? Who knows.

 

Bonus wisdom: if you put a rectangular piece of paper on the floor, a cat *will* occupy it.

 

 Posted by at 9:51 am

Baby it’s WAP outside

 AARRRGH, art, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., history, Hmm..., humor, politics, Worldwreckers, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 152022
 

And here we are:

There are of course comments by people who don’t understand the concept of “context:”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 8:17 am

Yup: Cyanotypes

 art, awesomeness, cyanotype blueprints, drawings, history, news  No Responses »
Dec 092022
 

I am going forward with the return to cyanotyping. I’m gathering the supplies needed to rebuild the capability; learning some lessons from before, this setup should be a little better and a little bigger. I should be able to make prints 24 inches by up to 7 feet. It’s a bit of a chore and certainly an expense, but the end results will, I hope, be an improvement over what I produced before.

 

As before, I plan on taking commissions. I don’t care what it is… aerospace diagrams, ships, architectural diagrams, sci-fi movie prop diagrams, gay wedding cake layouts… if it can be blueprinted, I’ll do it (for a fee). So if you have anything along those lines you’d like blueprinted in the old-school cyanotype fashion (white lines on a Prussian blue background), made by hand using chemicals, sunlight and effort rather than hitting “print,” let me know. Something I will try again is blueprinting onto linen. I ran off a few back in the day; interesting, but perhaps a bit niche.

 Posted by at 9:17 pm
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