Sunday, July 26, 2015

ANTILOG_26July15a

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ANTILOG_26July15a

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23:56 2015-07-26

* I have been collecting repositories on Github on a few subjects close to my heart.
* I have been collecting repositories having to do with Noise/Texture Synthesis, Procedural Generation, Digital Signal Processing.
* I forked a lot of them just so I could have a copy handy. I plan to study the code of these repositories as I continue to learn to program in Python.
* I started another experiment in Painting. It's not in the WHITE POINT SERIES necessarily. I think it's basically just a form of Texture Synthesis in actual live Painting.

Sunday, July 5, 2015

ANTILOG_05July15a

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ANTILOG_05July15a

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12:56 2015-07-05

* Yet another treatment has been applied to the First Official White Point Painting, for the White Point Project and Series ("ongoing").

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Time: Sun Jul 05 12:44:26 2015

Experiment: WHITE POINT PHASE ONE THIRD TREATMENT 003 - WASHING CANVAS

Statement of Purpose: The purpose of this current, the third, treatment was to diminish the intensity (read: saturation) of the yellow I used in the previous treatment (from yesterday when I started this painting, the first in the White Point Series). That's the purpose. The purpose is to really slowly "distress" the canvas. I begin with very thin layers of color, which I scratch and add synthetic or artificial "wear & tear" to, to give a faux-finish that looks "old" or "antique" (see. "antiquing", "relicing", "patination", etc.). The idea is to slowly and continuously shape the surface of the canvas in such a way that it looks old and "yellowed at the edges", but entirely "synthetically" (in a general process I tend to call "antisynthesis". The idea is to give it the veneer of "patina", a.k.a. the special "character" of antique furniture, to give a concrete example. You could call it a "refining" process. It is "iterated", "ambient", and "experimental". ("Serial" as well, of course!).

Procedure: Simply put, what I did was mix some white acrylic, only a few drops, into a metal pan / dish with a good deal of water. Say it was 95% water + 5% pigment/paint, or even substantially less than that. I used titanium white (or a variant thereof) and now I am just waiting for it to dry. As it dries, I meticulously observe every aspect of the surface "as-it-dries", to check out or try to spot anomalies, areas maybe missing paint. I am currently using a resin banquet table - 6 feet by 4 feet - and it's in these kinds of situations that one notices that FLOORS in apartment buildings are NOT EVEN LEVEL. The paint is slowly dripping to one side. The table and floor, the entire building, ISN'T LEVEL. So that's another reason why I have to watch and observe it quickly as it dries, because my goal / objective here was to apply a WHITE WASH on the ENTIRE SURFACE, equally everywhere.

Notes: It turns out that I had too much water in my mixture. The watered-down white paint, given that the acrylic itself is cheap and has less actual pigment than usual, what happened is that the whitewash treatment I just did is basically disappearing as it dries. But that's okay. It is still giving a DESIRABLE EFFECT, it's just VERY, VERY MINIMALISTIC. It is extremely subtle, which is fine, I will just correct that in Treatment Number Four.

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13:30 2015-07-05

* I applied a fourth treatment to the White Point Painting. (Phase One, Fourth Treatment).

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Time: Sun Jul 05 13:21:58 2015

Experiment: WHITE POINT PHASE ONE FOURTH TREATMENT - THE END OF PHASE ONE #004

Statement of Purpose: The purpose of Phase One was simply to "weather" the surface of the canvas some. I wanted to give it a textured veneer, all in infinitesimally off-white treatments/coats of paint, what can be called adding "PATINA" or a process of "patination". The Fourth Treatment of Phase One prepares us for Phase Two.

Procedure: What I did was "pat" the surface a little after it had been drying for several minutes, say 10-15-20 minutes. I patted it with a highly textured "texture sponge" as well as with some Paper Towel (the kind with a textured "pattern" on it). Then I added a little more of the whitened/yellowed paint and "texturized" that as well. In the last phase of this treatment, I ended up adding some more paint, this time a mixture I had made for a quick paint test on another surface (a small canvas, perfect for doing paint tests). I am letting it dry now and observing it closely, with an eye meticulously scanning and monitoring for details.

Notes: The First Phase basically, of the first official WHITE POINT PAINTING, is virtually over. I will be adding a transparent medium to the surface, what you might call an acrylic "varnish", which will be matte. I may then add some "granular" textures, using a product called a "No-Slip Compound". It's a product you add to a freshly painted surface to make it less SLIPPERY. It is a great compound for adding a little texture to a canvas, which is my goal here. The transparent medium/matte acrylic varnish, will not affect the COLOR of the painting in its current state. I must just remember not to use too much of the No-Slip Compound, or else I risk "UNDOING" some of my hard work so far on this painting. You just go slow and add it in layers.. it is like a powder of sorts, with a "SANDY TEXTURE".

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18:13 2015-07-05

* I made some more progress on the WHITE POINT PAINTING. Here are my notes.

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Time: Sun Jul 05 17:57:31 2015

Experiment: WHITE POINT - BEGINNING OF PHASE TWO: PREPARATIONS & INVOCATIONS, FIRST TREATMENTS

Statement of Purpose: I finished up Phase One of the first official WHITE POINT PAINTING. I am starting Phase Two. All I did was some extra DISTRESSING. All part and parcel of the iterative process. The purpose of this step is to give the surface YET MORE CHARACTER.

Procedure: I began using a "sandblock", a sand paper in the form of a small block. I used that some, to "age" the surface a little more, and then I added color and texture, all the while ensuring that I give it a good "wear & tear" and "patina" look and feel. This was the first "official" PATINA LAYER / TREATMENT. I began using contrasting colors.

Notes: This "preparation" step is going to be in two parts. I did some more stuff to the surface which I will describe in the next "REPORT".

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Time: Sun Jul 05 18:02:31 2015

Experiment: WHITE POINT - BEGINNING OF PHASE TWO: PREPARATIONS PART II, FIRST TREATMENTS #002

Statement of Purpose: At this point, I begin adding substantial amounts of color. I will often be "going over" my own work. That is, I will do something, apply a wash or some paint and the result will be that it will effectively "ERASE" something that I did earlier. That's okay because I can still make the older layers show through. All I have to do is "SCRATCH" the surface, or use SAND PAPER; there are many ways to make the older, bottommost layers shine through. That's one of the reasons I like to work with watered-down paint, so that it has some level of transparency. Plus I don't have to paint "ALL-OVER" the entire surface of the canvas, which automatically means the earlier layers will show through.

Procedure: Basically, I did a treatment comprising of the application of "YELLOWED" and slightly WHITENED "PUMPKIN ORANGE. I applied the orange with a palette knife to a good portion of the surface, say maybe 70-80% of the surface of the canvas. Then I scratched it with the palette knife as well as distressed it with an EXACTO KNIFE. I waited for it to dry and then later I used the SAND PAPER on the surface.

Notes: The idea was to add a little color, or CONTRAST. I effectively chose a tone of pale yellowed-orange.. The mixture, say, was 60-70% "pumpkin orange", the rest being white and yellow (a variant of "Cadmium Yellow" that's apparently called "bright yellow" or "canary yellow"). The color basically looks like the inside of a raw sweet potato. The darker HUE helps give the canvas character. Now there is beginning to be some CONTRAST. The only thing is, I ended up "UNDOING" a lot of the work and treatments I did before, by essentially "painting over them". That's okay. For the next treatment, I will be adding back some of the same light colors that I applied in the beginning. Then I will also be scratching and "distressing" the surface some more, hopefully revealing some of the underpainting.

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Saturday, July 4, 2015

ANTILOG_04July15a

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ANTILOG_04July15a

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20:06 2015-07-04

* This is the documentation I just made for a "first treatment" I just did on a new painting in what is to be an ongoing series called "WHITE POINT". Digital images forthcoming. Stay tuned.

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Time: Sat Jul 04 19:40:14 2015

Experiment: WHITE POINT PROJECT TRUE FIRST PHASE 001

Statement of Purpose: This experiment is an experiment in the human sensory perception of the dynamic subtleties of all manners of off-white paint colors. Essentially, the idea is to trick the human eye. We do this by using colors that are infinitesimally "off-white", i.e. infinitesimally "close" to pure titanium white. It is part of a project called WHITE POINT which was inspired by a close friend and retired printer M.J. from Brooklyn, when he began teaching me the intricacies of modern color theory. He is also one of the founders and chief researchers for the Nemetics project.

Procedure: The procedure so far is very simple: I merely "primed" my canvas with a color that was a mixture of roughly 95% titanium white and 5% what might be called "canary yellow". (In this case it was cheap acrylic paint without standard pigment metadata, it was called just "bright yellow". The canvas had already been primed with three coats of Gesso (white). I added the first coat of infinitesimally off-white banana yellow, mostly white, with only a pinch of yellow. Now it is drying. I am waiting to see what comes next. The way I work is I go by "treatments" and this coat of paint is the first official "treatment" (in what I call process-painting or procedural painting.)


Notes: Like all of my other Projects, the White Point Project is an open-ended series, what I call an "ongoing series". It will contain a collection of paintings that will go on over the course of a few years. The collections of images will also have digital counterparts, digital images and ambient experimental sound designs. I will also be writing a great deal of stuff, from poetry to novelistic writings, liner notes, further documentation and so forth. This is the first official SERIOUS work in the White Point Project. Now I wait for the paint to dry.

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22:48 2015-07-04

* More treatments to the first official painting in the WHITE POINT series. Documentation made via Python script.

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Time: Sat Jul 04 22:34:38 2015

Experiment: WHITE POINT PROJECT FIRST PHASE SECOND TREATMENT - CONTINUOUS YELLOWING OF CANVAS

Statement of Purpose: For the second treatment for the first White Point Painting, I wanted to take the yellowing a little further than I did in the first step,immediately prior to this one. The goal is to go step by step and to be very disciplined and strict about following the time-tested Algorithm. I will need to do several dozen "treatments" or "layers" if you will, before I really start talking business with this painting and also with this current first series in the White Point Project. The idea right now though is to just give the painting a little "character", that is, to give the CANVAS some "personality". Priming is one thing, it's just your base coat, or baseline. It's the foundation, in this case it was standard Gesso verging on titanium white. That gives me my luminosity and brilliance, for starters. The current treatments/layers/coats, though, are meant to DISTRESS THE CANVAS. Let's proceed.

Procedure: The firstmost procedure in this step was to add some "canary yellow" or "bright yellow" (really just a variant of Cadmium yellow) with a LARGE BRUSH (medium-large, depending on what you consider large or not), using a DRY-BRUSH TECHNIQUE. I did some dry brush slowly across the entire surface, and then continued until the acrylic paint was well "imbued" into the surface. I used a very small amount of paint, just enough to say that I actually used paint and not just thin air, but no more than that. I then began to scratch the surface with a large palette knife (medium, depending on what you consider a large palette knife). I went at it with the palette knife, going very fast at times and then slower at times, varying the pressure. I got all "artsy" about it, like I was a sword-fighter fighting pirates with a rapier. Now I am letting it dry and METICULOUSLY INSPECTING the surface to see how the paint sets, how it dries, what other CHARACTERISTICS/TRAITS/QUALIA/EFFECTS might show up in the process.


Notes: This was a good second treatment. It was a two-part treatment, consisting of a) DRY-BRUSH and then b) WORK WITH THE PALETTE KNIFE. The color applied was a variant of Cadmium yellow, cheap acrylic with not much pigment. I like this cheap acrylic paint with very little real pigment - compared to professional quality acrylics - because it is nice and watery/fluid AND the fact that it has substantially less pigment is actually a BLESSING. It means that the paint doesn't actually do a very good job of COVERING THE SURFACE. I mean it works just fine for most purposes, but I like to add water to it to make it more of the consistency that you'd use for a WASH, say, or SPLATTER (a little bit less than what you'd use to wash and spatter, but still much more watery than usual, i.e. closer to watercolor than standard acrylic). Hey, to each his own taste, right?

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