Plotter drawings

I have always been fascinated by the delicacy of line drawings, both hand drawn or computer produced. Recently, I came across some beautiful line drawings that are done with a computer and a plotter printer. This is a plotter drawings by Roman Verostko a pioneer of algorithmic/software art.

A plotter is a printer where different pencils can be inserted to achieve very precise line drawings.

By inserting different colored pencils and repeating the print processes a multicolor line drawing results. Some artists have also been inserting brushes into the plotter to achieve totally different results. Or below and example of a plotter drawing on sand by Jean-Pierre Hebert using a steal ball as a drawing device that is guided by a magnet controlled by the computer/plotter. After some time the patterns in the sand vanish and the process starts again.

The algorithm that controls the output of the printer is usually programmed by the artists themselves. A programming language that has been particular popular in recent years to achieve this type of visual outputs is Processing.

However plotter drawings where used since the very early days of computer art in the 60s. Below an example of early computer art using the plotter as an output device by Charles Csuri called Sine Curve Man.

If you want to see more visit the Digital Art Museum