St. Peters at Harper's Ferry

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View of St Peter's from the Shenandoah River painted by half a dozen participants on 11/19/2013. Perhaps the most colorful painting to date. Project took two days amid multiple palette and design changes. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this autumnal meditation is the feint but visible silhouette of Sponge Bob Square Pants in the top right hand corner. As this painting was a crowdsourced painting, complete creative license was handed over to anyone who participated. It would seem that one of the participants was a Sponge Bob fan.

Crowdsourced Queen Elizabeth

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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

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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.

Mother of Pigeons

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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.

Semi-Finalist in Barbican's Dev-Art Competition

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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.