Flash Drawing Interface

Last time I did a project that required a drawing interface I was sent one by Ian. Whilst it didn't help me last time this time it is perfect for the simple drawing based project that I am doing. I have amended the palette and remove the load and play function but it can be used to save the drawings using PHP coding. This is what it looks like:-

Ideas, ideas, ideas

These are some of the title blocks that I have come up with in keeping with my ideas.



This was my first idea before I decided to make the web space quite girlie. It is a bit more serious and I don't think it works very well, it's a kind of middle ground and doesn't have any really definite direction to it.



I like this one very much, it is colourful yet not garish. I think that with a white background this will work well.



Very simple but nice.



Again a simple idea to do candy stripes.

I would like to look at adding a style sheet to my web-page so that it can appeal to other age groups.
Maybe a choice of male/female/adult/child on the enter page might be nice.

Website design ideas

I am in a position now to start designing the look of my web space.
I have amended my idea slightly and I will use a flash drawing interface already online to allow the users of the art project to interact directly rather than upload drawings to the site. The suggestion was made by someone else when we were brainstorming persona ideas and it definitely makes more sense.
The persona of the person the web site is based on will be a girl of about 12 years old, she is artistic and enjoys being creative. She has a computer in her room and loves to find art and art games online.
Bearing these stipulations in mind I would like my web space to reflect a friendly and fun interface for this age bracket.

Ideas - Candy stripes, candy floss, floral patterns, bubbles. Bright colours but not too garish.


http://www.borntoquilt.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1_80&products_id=3834&osCsid=30715a43558c9850d8c1dc5db3263c25


http://www.topbun.com/myspace-layouts/viewimage/164


http://www.creativemaking.co.uk/shop2/index.php?cPath=3_145&osCsid=9c1297f31c445f7c2a559e6ce4d6db7b


http://www.alisonellisdesign.com.au/NCframes.jpg


http://www.alisonellisdesign.com.au/NCVellum01.jpg

Looking for artists

I have been trying to research relevant movements and older artists rather than contemporary ones to related my project to, to get some historical presidence to compare with.

I have found a painting called The Angelus that was originally painted 1857-1859 as a commissioned piece by the artist Jean Francois Millet. The piece was later revisited by Salvador Dali and modified to his style.


The Angelus, Jean Francois Millet

Picture from http://www.cs.nyu.edu/~rastogi/blog/jottings/2005_08_01_archive


Archaeological Reminiscences of Millet's Angelus, 1933-35, Salvador Dali

Picture from http://www.colorado.edu/Sewall/kit/

Word Artists

In my search for new and exciting word art/artists I have found the following interesting and nice websites. Some are more successful than others but as before the ideas are nice.

www.tate.org.uk/netart/bvs/thedumpster.htm

The Dumpster - I love the interface very organic/fluid motion of the bubbles. The data is scrapped from blogs using searches such as the words 'dumped' and 'broke up'.

Screen shot:

"The Dumpster." The Dumpster. Tate. 1 Nov 2007 .

Exquisite Copse - Nice idea you choose from a list of books and enter a word and a tree grows from sentences in the book with your chosen word in. Simple concept (not sure the programming is though).

http://www.devoid.co.uk/exquisitecopse/grow.html

Screen shot:



"Exquisite Copse." Exquisite Copse. Devoid. 1 Nov 2007 .

Digital Word Artists

During my research into digital and word based artists I have come across several sites that are of interest. They are not always as successful in reality as some of the concepts suggest:-


http://potatoland.org/landfill

The idea of this website is that people upload/dump any email documents, HTML code, SPAM into this art piece. You can then view all of the information placed there, like sifting through a giant digital dustbin. The reality of this project does not appear to be as good as the idea, you would expect to get interesting tit-bits of private thoughts, emails etc. but the reality is lots of spam/junk about viagra and things like that. It would be interesting to do something similar with photographs.

http://paintmywords.net

This is an interesting idea again and will be displayed at a few of the larger art galleries including Tate Modern, Museum of Modern Art.

It is a collaborative art piece where anyone can participate by typing in the area available anything they want to be included into this art piece. You have a choice of whether you want your words to be displayed in red, green or blue lettering. The piece when complete will be printed on paper and then mounted on canvas.

I found that because of the website and the presentation of this project it is very difficult to see whether this is likely to be a successful idea or not. It is very hard to visualize and the time that it might take to complete this art piece may well result in a lack of interest.

http://drunkmenworkhere.org

This is a very busy and bizarre web experience. There are lots of digital art projects/concepts on this site, all a bit pointless but useful for killing time.

Word based artists

I've found various games and artists that produce word based internet art. Here are a couple of the interesting links that I have found:-

www.eatpoopucat.com/EPUC/

Eat Poop U Cat is a game where the first person writes a sentence, the second person draws a visual representation of it. The third person only sees the second picture and has to write a sentence to describe it to the next person, who then draws it. etc. etc.

Example below

The calculator swings!

Calculatoro Calcularei was hanged in the country of the Measures. The rulers of that time found his teachings way too much advanced, to the point of heresy

It was a sad day when the ruler and his measuring minions hung the calculator by his turban.

"And that's what you get for measuring abstractions!"

Warning: Measuring your head may lead to spontaneous combustion.

Photos taken from:-
"Eat Poop U Cat." Eat Poop U Cat. InTime Games, LLC. 17 Oct 2007 .


For another variation on chinese whispers theme http://kevan.org/whisper involves using photographs, there are 3 variations on the games, standard, theme or photoshop.

Standard involves taking a photograph of the sentence provided, it gets emailed to the next person and they have to replicate it as closely as possible take a photo and then pass it on etc.

Themed involves someone taking a photo of a themed idea, they pass it on and the next person has to guess the theme and take an appropriate picture themselves etc.

Photoshop involves using the program to digitally replicate the picture sent to you using google images or your own photos.

Photos shown are taken from:-
Kevan. "Photographic Chinese Whispers." Kevan Dot Org. 17 Oct 2007