Drawing Machine

How I made my drawing machine, and in the process made artists obsolete. When I first moved into my new studio, I had no important projects looming, and wasn't yet comfortable in the space. I built this "Drawing Machine" so that I could be productive, but not really. I would set it up, turn it on and then read Sculpture Magazine for a while as the machine did its jiggly business. This project was built using junk found around the studio for a cost of $0.00. It utilizes an old power drill with an offset cam in the chuck for motion.

Step 1 The Machine

Essentially, it's a power drill with an offset cam in the chuck clamped to a box. The cams were made using a hole saw on 1/8 inch copper sheet, with a thick copper stem hard soldered off center. A good deal of flexibility is available in this detail, as a lot of cam configurations can be used. The pics make it pretty clear how the rest of the thing is made. It's not rocket science, it's art.

Comments

[roboman2444]

Cool, but it looks as thought the stylus hugs the wall, maybe making it so the paper is curved so its slightly lower in the center will help.

[felixfatts]

you could easily make this concept more "artistic" by make the amount of vibration variable, and putting a good magnet in the stylus by which you can loosely direct the path of the stylus. or have the center of the stylus be paint and the tips be straws with flow control

[natethegreat88]

These look more like "How to make your own mace" out of household items or like just replace those pencils with some nails and you have a deadly weapon that could possibly be a shuriken type weapon.

[firesketch]

Any pics with the coloured pencils? Iz nize! : D

[olof.net]

you should check out my website, http://www.oolf.net . I started building similar drawing machines, but later found other great ways of visualizing stuff, like wind and so forth. Really nice works

[kylemcdonald]

This is a really beautiful example of physical generative art. I'd like to see some larger scale and multi-colored drawings.

[hay_jumper]

Thank you all for the great feedback and ideas. As I said, the potential for this idea is limitless, and you all have given me some great ideas.

The only problem I have found with this project is that with out the correct blend of elements, the drawings might come out looking very muddy. Not that there is anything wrong with muddy. I, however, lean heavily towards the minimalists and the abstract expressionists. Not so much the color-field types. But that is an issue of personal taste.

Screaminscott mentioned a bit about putting a raised design underneath which I liked. It is not really noticeable in the photo of the drawing (let's call it) "diagonal marks", but the texture if the wood underneath does show, so that idea yields positive results.

Kiteman, I'm not sure your ball-bearing idea would work so well, as the motion of the machine isn't so violent that a copper sheet would be marred. I could be wrong, and I would love to see images of you proving me wrong.

Mamofo: http://animalsart.ru/chimpanzee1.htm Yes, they can.

[xxxafterglow]

Maybe the key to making it minimalist is to restrict either the movement of the stylus (e.g. bigger stylus), the number of markmakers (less pencils) or the amount of time spent. Or you know, sharpen the pencils a lot or use really hard 8Hs or 16Hs. Maybe if there were a way to rig the motion-maker way up high and have the stylus swinging from a string - similar idea but you are limited only by the size of your studio and maybe you'll have to get some friends to grab/release the stylus. Wow this was posted more than a year ago. How's the machine doing?

[pachanka]

"art weapon", now thats a cool concept

[Tobita]

for the art-attack tv series:P

[heavy.metal.nguyen]

Hasn't this been posted already? It's nice though.

[hay_jumper]

Yeah, I posted it over a year ago, it just got featured (again) by the editing staff. Thanks for your astute observation.

[heavy.metal.nguyen]

Yeah I was wondering why it was at the front of the list. Nice word: astute. Have to use that more often. Makes me sound smart.

[Zengineer1618]

Interesting. What if you didn't use a drill ,but instead put the fence assembly on top of a big speaker and then played music /noise/vocals through the speaker? I wonder what kind of images the speaker vibes would create?

[technoplastique]

I really love the idea of using something like this in a collage or as the base for a drawing. You could use colored pencils. Or exacto knives and film a horror film...

[Lord Of Mystra]

very cool! *goes drillnapping*

[malenamalena]

um, i take it you are an artist? i teach at a university and am guessing you know about the 'historical' drawing machines, no? if you want, i can refer you to artists who have done this in decades past...but if you read sculpture mag then you probably already know???

[Spl1nt3rC3ll]

http://www.instructables.com/forum/TERUXT1F3SYTLW3/

[Canookian]

Heh. At first glance, I'd thought that you've come up with a contraption from Stephen King's 'The Tommyknockers'

[Kiteman]

Another styus idea: use a hot pin to poke holes in a ping-pong ball, then use a sringe to fill it with pigment of some kind (paint, ink, etc). If it drainss out too quickly, add cornflower to thicken it. Or why not colour in the whole sheet of paper with pencil, then let a heavy eraser bounce around in there for a while? Or put a handful of iron filings in there for a while, then switch it off and mist with water. Lay another sheet of damp paper over the top, then leave the "sandwich" in a plastic bag for a day or two until the filings rust and stain the paper - you will have a pair of mirror images - then let the paper dry and brush the filings off.

[StepsoftheSun]

Various hues of thickened paint in several ping-pong balls sounds like a great idea! Have you tried building one of these, Kiteman? And as an aside to the author, "Dueling Styluses--a Battle of Wills" had me laughing so hard...

[Kiteman]

No, my Making is usually limited to ideas by lack of space and excess of kack-handedness.

[StepsoftheSun]

Haha, sorry to hear that.

[abbiegrrl]

Wow, that reminds me of a....plasma-something from an old sci-fi movie! ;o) cool idea.

[T3h_Muffinator]

Hey! That's quite interesting! Nice job man! you should crush up some chalk and put it in between two pieces of paper, and let one of your styluses bounce around. The chalk would get compressed and smudge on the paper, resulting in a very original piece of art!

[poulw]

As process documentation it does hold some interest. However the beat of the drill is a single note thing and therefore the picts don't hold reward prolonged attention. Find a way to make this polyrhythmic and you'll be on to something. ps- get a job (kidding) yur pal paul

[royalestel]

hayjumper, I want to cultivate as much creativity as you've obviously got. Any hints?

[royalestel]

No sarcasm. I really think this is very creative and I'd like to know if you have any hints on how to cultivate creativity in one's self.

[Fenwick]

You could put coasters under the paper and get rings. That's be cool.

[sinner_93]

why dont u patent this wonderful machine? you can fill some paint in ping pong ball and attach a few straws.....

[NumberX]

I assume that those cams are da bomb? (Get it? You named them Fat Man and Little Boy.)

[hlumbard]

I want to see a youtube vid of this thing!

[lemonie]

For another idea - heat-sensitive (e.g. facsimile) paper and a hot-lump (of e.g. charcoal). You would cover the paper in aluminium foil to prevent burning & ash/carbon deposits. Then again, regular unprotected paper would produce something interesting(?)

[pfred1]

It looks like toast!

[frankenchicken]

nifty idea... One suggestion to possibly make it even better... You should try making your "pencil ball" thingy with different colors. So when it is running, you will get different "pixels" and it would possibly be able to be even more Rorschach like (you know the ink blot guy.. Rorschach's ink blot tests).

[screaminscott]

Another idea might be to put a rasied design under the paper, and see how that affects the marks on top of the paper. It might come out something like a rubbing or something completely unexpected.

[Kiteman]

How about a compressible pad (like a piece of camping roll-mat), laid over with a sheet of copper? Replace the stylus with a ball-bearing, and hammer out your design.

[crapflinger]

throw a couple (or more) charcoals (the art kind OR the BBQ kind) or pastels in there and let them rattle around paint your cat's feet then throw it in the box on top...turn the drill on (this has the added bonus of making nice designs on your floor/carpet/furniture/ceiling/face as well) it would also be nifty to keep the drill on the base the way it is to offer the up and down vibration...but then maybe use another drill with another offset cam pointing upwards (instead of horrizontal like you have the one in the base) that would cause the entire top of the contraption (you'd have to make a seperate top for the tray) to move around in a circle...adding a bit more randomness to the mix

[timbudtwo]

Very creative, but why?

[mabufo]

Chimps can paint.