Sketchy Machines

A pen plotted street map in silver ink on black paper with a river bend visible in the negative space in the center.

Maps look surprisingly good in silver! h/t to @doersino.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy for his osm2svg tool ghpages.noahdoersing.com/osm2svg4art/ and thanks to DirtAlleyDesign for organizing the plot party (on Instagram).

#plotterart,#penplotter #mapart

For those interested in workflow, I used copilot to reinterpret the photo into a rendering style and then vpype flow imager to render to SVG.  Staedler Triplus on office paper.

A black and white sketch of a flower in a small bottle done by a plotter in a very sketchy style. The flower is large and irregular. The stem has a leaft. The bottle says Belle Brillet and, strangely, poivre.

It's been months since I plotted anything, but this Monday's prompt (Flowers) from DirtAlleyDesign (on Instagram) and a particularly beautiful crop of peonies blooming in the garden nudged me to try a new photo to plotter workflow. 
#plotter #plotterart

A plotter postcard of multicolored lines on a black background. There are holes along the top edge like for a ring binder. The multicolored lines are made by scratching through a black coating.

Hey checkout this great #ptpx postcard from @polygonsoup on Instagram.  Love these colors, and the sgraffito technique!  #plotterart #penplotter

Two post cards, one in the left has two faces plotted in a pointillist style, and the one on the right has variations of the word “FUCK” stamped in different colors. A booklet on top shows a picture of the stamping process.

Always nice getting surprise #ptpx mail!

Bottom left is @verytiredrobot.bsky.social’s exploration of latent space of a facial autoencoder.

Top and right,
Daniel Catt’s work using a stamp with a plotter, and a nice photo booklet of the process!

A set of plotted postcards in black and blue, each consisting of two faces rendered in halftone with a barcode between them

Woohoo! #ptpx postcards hit the post office earlier this week. And besides that, I did a little write up about it. tinyurl.com/FaceAntiface #plotterart #penplotter

A plotter art postcard in white ink on black paper. There is an inner rectangle of white dots on the black background of the paper. The dots are distributed fairly randomly, but vertical lines are visible where they are drawn from different distributions.

#ptpx is stretching out into a year long event! 😂 Friday I received this piece from Romain (data.flaw on Instagram). Love that sharp contrast of the white on black! Look closely to pick up on the alternating line structure (you see it more in the thumbnail). #plotterart #penplotter

A plotter art postcard showing a network of streets and paths in red, blue and green ink.

Thanks to Noah Doersing for this clever #ptpx postcard showing the OSM street map data thoughtfully placed nearby, but not exactly on, my house.  Extra thanks for sharing your code (ghpages.noahdoersing.com/osm2svg4art/) - I definitely do plan to try it out!

#plotterart #penplotter

(Those smudges are extra randomness generously contributed by the postal service 🤨.)

A plotter art postcard showing flow around a cylinder, from left to right. The flow becomes slightly turbulent after passing the cylinder and the lines cross. The postal service contributed some smudges.

Latest #ptpx arrival, Lattice Boltzmann Method @ Re = 400. If you like CFD - and if you are reading this you very well might be the kind of person who does 🤓 - checkout the blog post. nathan.fun/posts/2024-1...
#plotterart #ptpx

On a pretty depressing day, I got a little cheer with a #ptpx postcard from @bylr.info - including information on how it was programmed, and links to GitHub.

Another #ptpx postcard arrived, this one from @pcasadebaig.bsky.social all the way from France. Beautifully intricate work. Is there a standard postcard size for the world? I've been operating on the idea that a postcard is 100x150mm, which granted based on US postal standards. #plotterart

A plotter art postcard comprising fine red grids. Different regions are angled in different ways and where the regions abut, an illusion of folding is created.

Another #ptpx postcard!

In a lovely red fine linework, this untitled piece is by Simon M. @smn_txyz. I really dig those illusory folds. Unfortunately I can't figure out what social media platform that handle is actually on, so if you know this person, please tag them with my thanks. #plotterart

This one was a special #genuary, a little month of generative heaven in dark times!
Congrats to all who did their best to join, and @piterpasma.nl and et al for making this happen. To celebrate, here is a #Genuary Reel to explore users who filled up their calendars on OP: bit.ly/genuary-reel

A plotter art image in red ink of an engraved anatomical drawing of a human heart. This variation allows some areas to be fully white, and the background is empty. (Source image https://thegraphicsfairy.com/royalty-free-images-anatomical-heart-vintage/)

A plotter art image in red ink of an engraved anatomical drawing of a human heart. This variation has a lightly diagonally hatched background as well as diagonal hatching in light areas. (Source image https://thegraphicsfairy.com/royalty-free-images-anatomical-heart-vintage/)

Over on Insta, there is a #plotterart plot party hosted by PenPlotArt. Been a while since I could join in, but I had time yesterday to try rendering from an old engraved illustration of the heart, and I'm pretty happy with it. Bic ballpoint / office paper on Roland DXY-885. (orig img in alt text)

These have greatly cheered an otherwise kind of dismal January, thanks very much to all of you!

A plotter art postcard of blue-silver lines on pink paper. The postcard is divided into an arrangement of rectangles, which contain contour-like lines resembling the grain of wood, containing knots. By Brendan Howell.

- And a piece inspired by wood end grain, from Brendan Howell (no social media contact info, but I shall cry into the void that I liked it.). #ptpx #plotterart

A square plotter art postcard involving white lines on black paper.  The outer arrangements are highly irrgular grid fragments.  In the center there are four sections of regular grid work.  By Julien Gachadoat https://www.v3ga.net

- A white on black paper piece by Julien Gachadoat www.v3ga.net (not on BlueSky I don't think). White ink on black paper is always a winning combo! #ptpx #plotterart

A plotter art postcard of multicolored horizontal lines on white paper partially behind and partially in front of a black shape, which is square on the bottom left and irregular on the upper right. By @jcammarata.bsky.social

- A lovely mixed media (I think this is paint and ink) by @jcammarata.bsky.social #ptpx #plotterart

We had a postal strike in Canada, and while in principle they were back on the job by Christmas, the mail has been very, very slow to arrive.
But I'm happy to say some #PTPX have been trickling in!  And hey, I haven't sent mine yet, so who am I to complain.  Without further ado, presenting 🧵