This crowdsourced portrait of Einstein turned out to be a lot more popular than I was expecting. Got written up here which resulted in all sorts of attention. Though I am of course a big fan, I didn't realize that Einstein was such a popular media figure.
Historic
Crowdsourced Gandhi
This portrait came together much faster than anticipated. I originally planned to keep it up all week, but after only a day of painting it looked beautiful, so I decided to pull it out of the robot. One of the rare aspects of this painting is that it escaped vandalism.
Crowdsourced Queen Elizabeth
Stopped this painting after the second day. Had originally planned to have it up all week, but it just got too interesting. I would love to find out who added the collar. It is so spooky, so much so, I decided it was done.
Just Received this email about the collar:
"I was who painted the spooky collar on Queen Elizabeth portrait, also paint the face, clothing and FSM (flying spaghetti monster) in the top right. I would like to add that the necklace was a kind of futuristic necklace.
I love your artistic idea is fantastic from Spain I can paint a painting in America. - C Mas"
Crowdsourced Buzz Aldrin
Somewhere in Germany, the imagination of an artist was captured by this portrait meant to commemorate Buzz Aldrin's moon landing. The artist's name was R. Meyer. Where others saw an American Hero, R. Meyer saw a muscle bound psychopath. No matter how many times people tried to paint over his strokes, R. Meyer would return and repaint his vision. Over and over, back and forth, R. Meyer would not be dissuaded, until finally it was time for us to move on to the next painting.
R. Meyer was triumphant and his interpretation won out over all others.
Semi-Finalist in Barbican's Dev-Art Competition
Half way through the video you will notice that sometime in the early afternoon of the second day, things get interesting. This must have been when this project got featured on DevArt - a competition we have put our painting robot into. Multiple users from around the world appear to be battling for control of the brush strokes. Two separate vandals put an "X" on Lincoln's face and an anarchy symbol in the background. Someone says "HI". Another person signs their name multiple times. Near the end, a friend's son signs his name down the side and plays Tic-Tac-Toe on Lincoln's face.
The coolest thing to happen, however, is that most of the people just work on the portrait. Someone even spends a good bit of time attempting to repair the "X" that disfigured Lincoln's face. Watching this painting get crowd-sourced was like watching a battle between order and chaos. At the end of the second day, something in the middle prevailed.
Crowdsourced George Washington
Crowdsourced portrait of George Washington. These paintings are becoming more and more interesting. Three attempts at vandalism occurred on this piece but each time moire strokes were performed that repaired most of it. You can still see writing across the bottom and a dollar sign near his forehead.
Crowdsourced Martin Luther King Memorial
This is a time lapse of a recent painting completed by crowdpainter.com. The painting starts off being painted over another older work, but when the first angle of MLK comes off lacking, a third and final painting begins featuring a close up of his face. The portrait is based on a photo taken of his memorial in the Washington DC Downtown Mall.
Crowdsourced Liberty
This is a painting of the Statue of Liberty by CrowdPainter. It is a time-lapsed rendering of a painting that took over two days to complete. At least 3 individuals contributed to this painting, possibly more. This was made while the robot is still in Beta. It is the 37th project by the robot, though admittedly, many of the projects have been small or failed to incomplete. At this point about 5 paintings have been finished, the subject of each being related to a National Park.
Early Crowd Painter Portrait of Roosevelt
Early attempts at making crowdsourced portraits.