Artonomo.us - beginnings of a completely autonomous painting robot.

Artonomo.us is my latest painting robot project.

In this project, one of my robots

1: Selects it’s own imagery to paint.

2: Applies it’s own style with Deep Learning Neural Networks.

3: Then paints with Feedback Loops.

An animated GIF of the process is below…

Artonomo.us is currently working on a series of sixteen portraits in the style above. The portraits were selected from user submitted photos. It will be painting these portraits over the next couple weeks. When done it will select a new style and sixteen new user submitted portraits. If you would like to see more of these portraits, or submit yours for consideration, visit artonomo.us.

Below are the images selected for this round of portrait. We will publish the complete set when Artonomo.us is finished with it…

Pindar

Another Cool Video Feature and Schedule for Next Paintings

First off wanted to share this cool feature by America's Greatest Makers.  It includes footage of my kids so its my favorite feature yet. Also like it 'cause it clearly explains a lot about what I am doing in 2 quick minutes.

https://www.americasgreatestmakers.com/video/bitpaintr/

Schedule wise, here is list of people slated for portraits in next two weeks.  I have also contacted you via private email to work out the details. The list is...

Nick, Michelle, Brian, Dave, Chris, and William.

Thanks again, and as always feel free to contact me to expedite your painting.  I am working down the list and bumping priority to anyone that needs something for birthday or special event.

Photo Submission Guidelines and Quick Update

So about half of you backers have responded to the questionnaire and sent in photos. Some followed the guidelines I gave in earlier post, but most of you just ignored them. So then I realized that you all don't want me telling you what to submit.

Send in whatever you want. I was convinced that some of the submission below wouldn't work, but then they came out great! So what do I know. If you do send in a non-standard image, just have patients with my robots early attempts.   If my existing algorithms have  a hard time with the image, we will just try painting a second one. It will be up to you.

Schedule wise, I have already begun painting some portraits that are needed for Christmas presents. Will have a schedule of when you can expect your paintings as soon as some more questionnaires come back.  If you have not filled out the questionnaire I sent out, please do.  If you need portrait as a Christmas present, please tell me as soon as possible.  The slots are just about full but if its really important to you, its really important to me and I will see what I can do.

Discovery Channel Just Interviewed Me

So the big interview I wasn't going to announce until it actually happened just happened yesterday.

The Daily Planet of Discovery Channel spent the day with me at my Tysons Studio.

Discovery Channel Interview

At the same time a second camera crew was in Toronto filming one of my first patrons using the robot to paint a portrait.  It was an international painting event as we worked back and forth on what I am told will be a five minute segment.  I can not wait to see it and will tell everyone when the air date will be.

So thanks again for everyone's support.  We are almost at 40% of funding with two weeks to go.  If you know anyone that might want to join in this journey, feel free to tell them about this Kickstarter and what a great Christmas Present these paintings would be. I can do the next 30 or so in time before Christmas!

Think word of mouth. I am relying on it.

Cyber Raid on Crowdsourced Portrait?

These are possibly the most interesting painting to date. The video of their creation contains a detailed description of our experience with several recent crowdsourced paintings, vandalism of them, a hack of our robot communications, and an attempt to log into and steal control of our servers.  This attack was actually featured in a TechTimes article that you can find in the press section.

My favorite painting to come out of all these raids asked the profound question...

Is it Art?

Also, here is a graphics dump of one of the painting's stroke queue. Amazing Stuff.

Crowdsourced Musicians

This triptych was painted by hundreds of people over 6 weeks. The time lapse video shows the final two weeks when the third canvas was being worked on. It is of three Washington D.C. Street Performers that calmed my crying daughter with a soothing rendition of Killing Me Softly.

Crowdsourced Portrait of Mother

Crowdsourced Portrait of the Artist's Mother entry for Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2016.

What would happen if I just let anyone paint anything?

Thought we would test out and see what would happen if we gave the users no direction at all and only black and white paint. In earlier paintings there was always a trace image which served as a goal that people could work towards.

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 Self Portrait

I have done self portraits with my robot before, but this is the first crowd sourced one. Left it up for a number of days for people from around the world to work on it. Also, my youngest son did a significant amount of work on it.

Mother of Pigeons

Second in our portrait series lasting the month. We are basically loading in one portrait after another throughout July. This portrait was taken in the same room as the previous one of my brother. The subject spontaneously grabbed a pigeon doll that was lying around and incorporated it in the photo. Not sure why I liked it, but I did and it worked for me.

Child Portrait Beta 87

Crowd sourced painting robot test run Beta 87. Good mix of human and AI contributions. Brush cleaner working much better.

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 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.

Picasso, Warhol, and Robot

Warhol once said he wanted to paint like a robot. Painting robots now make his wish possible. This piece is a robot’s interpretation of a Picasso as may have been executed by Warhol.

Warhol Picasso and Robot (58"x18")

Big claim of course, and probably not true. Well the part where it was painted by my robot is true.

I took an image of Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” and fed it into my robots algorithms. It then came up with the painting you see above. Cool thing about when my robot paints though is that it then is able to repaint the image in a similar manner. This was done to make the three canvas triptych. If you look at each image, you will see slight differences. It is sort of a print, but unique. A close up of one of the three canvases can be seen below.

Like all my work with the robot, this is for sale to support further robotic art development. You can also click here to see other robot generated paintings.

Two Large Format Paintings by my most Recent Robot

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.

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.

Robot Now Taking Live Photos of its Progress

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. 

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 http://www.vanarman.com.