In my free time, I program my plotter bot, Karel, to draw with a pen. Because the plotter uses a simple pen all I can use are simple black lines, not too much to play with. But I came to love the simplicity and elegance of a simple line and started to utilize it in my drawings. In contrast to most photo editing algorithms I do not transform the photo pixel by pixel but really create a set of strokes that only make sense altogether.

This style was inspired by Van Gogh. I wanted to use simple lines to create an expressive drawing. Some of the drawings are made of over 35.000 individual lines. It takes the plotter a little bit more than 2 hours to finish the drawing.

This and more styles can be found on my Etsy shop or on Kickstarter.

More info: Etsy | kickstarter.com

A miniature drawing of Dali

To test the limits of the plotter I like to make the drawings as small as possible. Here is a miniature drawing of Dali. It was drawn with the same pen as shown in the photo.

Dali drawing close up

The algorithm in work

Drawing on A4 aquarelle paper

Errors made by the code

When I finished the drawing with the plotter. I found out that my algorithm got confused in completely black areas and did not produce lines in those. Luckily this was easy to fix.

Here is a close up on the eye. I use Italian aquarelle paper for the drawings

The corrected algorithm in work

A drawing on A3 aqarelle paper

I scanned this drawing for better quality.

Digital girl portrait

Digital Alcia Vikander portrait

Comparison of my first algorithm with the newest version

A simulation of the drawing

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