David Calloway is creating
Algorithmic Art
I'm an award-winning artist who writes software that creates art!
3
$12
Milestone Goals
I Need to Buy Some paper!
The heavyweight, cotton-rag watercolor paper I use for my flower prints is expensive! My first goal will fund the purchase of additional paper I can use to print out my drawings so patrons and other fans of my work can hang these works of art on their walls.
Periodically (a few times each month) make a new print-worthy drawing, and make it available to 100 patrons.
I'd like to produce beautiful geometric, algorithmic images like these, with interesting, visually-appealing features that draw the viewers gaze to the many intricate features of each drawing and share both the images and the process I use to make them with patrons who enjoy my work.
About
Why do I create art? Like most artists, I think, I can't help but try to make something new and different that viewers will find to be interesting. I combine my love of art and interest in science to produce works that I hope will inspire. My goal is to produce something beautiful that amazes the viewer with its intricacy and is produced in strange and wonderful ways, using computer programs that I write myself.
Location
Orlando, FL, USA
Top PatronsSee all 3
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What I do: I create new and interesting types of algorithmic art -- art that is created completely autonomously, by computer software that I write myself and then set loose to create wonderful, intricate, and visually-interesting works.
What is this Patreon thing??? Patreon is a platform that enables anyone to be a Patron of the Arts for as little as $1/month. You select the artists you want to support and tell Patreon how much you want to contribute each month to reward the artists whose works you value. This is not a platform designed for purchasing art, but rather a way to encourage artists to continue producing their work by providing a small monetary reward as a token of your appreciation and your encouragement for what we do.
Artists, for their part, pledge to produce at least one work of art each month and describe what we make and how we make it. Our patrons become a community of friends who can read about the work we do and better understand why we do what we do and the process we go through in making each particular piece. Artists can also provide various rewards to our patrons based on the level of support provided. For example, my rewards range from a hearty "THANKS!" for a $1 monthly contribution to my tip jar, to a top reward of original pieces of art each quarter for someone with an interest in collecting.
What's my niche? I've created several different types of algorithmic art and I hope to share some examples of my work here on Patreon. For those who might be wondering, algorithmic art is a work of art that is produced entirely by a computer algorithm, a computer program written by the artist - it is essentially an artistic result that comes from a sequence of mathematical equations. You might think of the computer as the paint and canvas, while the algorithm is my paintbrush.
My programs range from simulations of physical contraptions that could never really exist in the real world to simply writing some math equations that I intentionally design to produce some image that I'd like to see appear on the virtual canvas of the computer. In the first case, I don't always have a particular result in mind and the image the algorithm produces is often a surprise -- if it's a good surprise a work of art is created! If not, I tweak the program and try again.
In the second case, I have an image in mind of what I'm trying to convince a computer to produce and I try to string together some mathematical equations that can make that image come to life. In either case, it's often the process that is the motivating factor for me, and not always the result. I ask myself, "what can I do with science and mathematics that can entice a computer to produce something new and interesting without human intervention" (other than saying "GO!")?
I don't touch up my art using Photoshop or other image-manipulation programs and I don't interfere with the algorithmic process by manually manipulating or changing an image. What I make comes directly out of the computer using the algorithms I've coded into the programs I write. At its core, every work I make is based purely on mathematics.
What are the Creations and Activity links about? Each time I create a new, "print-worthy" work of art I post the result to my Patreon Creations page (you can find the link at the top of this page). I try to make a new "Creation" three or four times each month. As I work through various issues and discuss what I'm trying to do and the process I go through to make my artwork, I post these discussions to the Activity page (the Activity link is up at the top of this page, too). I often post my failures, which quite often result in humorous images of one sort or another. Sometimes, a "failure" (when the resulting image is nothing like the result I was hoping for) ends up being something quite strange and different - and perhaps even becomes a work of art in its own right - even if it was not something I intended to make. Those are often the results that lead me in a new direction!
So, the Activity pages are kind of like an on-going blog about my process while the Creation pages show primarily just the end results, the final works.
Flowers from Algol: An Example of my Creative Process for Making Algorithmic Art. For the first few weeks I will share a perennial favorite that I've been working on for many years. In fact, I've been tweaking, and improving this particular algorithm for almost ten years. This algorithm produces a flower that emerges spontaneously from a blank canvas background, appearing to materialize out of empty space. I produce these flowers by running a computer program I've written to model a strange contraption. This strange and wonderful device consists of 1024 springs that are all connected to one another in a ring. My program models the physics of the springs, making their motion react like a set of real springs would react if they were stretched and released to vibrate in space. I simulate the process of stretching out the contraption, releasing it, and I then draw a fine line representing the position of each spring at an instant in time. After shortening the length of each spring by a small, random amount and then calculating the physics of motion and adjusting the new position of each spring over a very short duration of time, I draw their new positions and repeat this process many thousands of times. As the contraption collapses, a beautiful flower spontaneously emerges.
The image shown above (in the banner of this page) is a small thumbprint of an actual drawing. The original is over 12,000 x 15,000 pixels and is printed on heavyweight, 100% cotton rag, acid-free paper using archival-quality pigmented resin ink. You can see the full image at somewhat higher resolution than this thumbnail on my "Creations" page...it's the image for Week 1.
What is this Patreon thing??? Patreon is a platform that enables anyone to be a Patron of the Arts for as little as $1/month. You select the artists you want to support and tell Patreon how much you want to contribute each month to reward the artists whose works you value. This is not a platform designed for purchasing art, but rather a way to encourage artists to continue producing their work by providing a small monetary reward as a token of your appreciation and your encouragement for what we do.
Artists, for their part, pledge to produce at least one work of art each month and describe what we make and how we make it. Our patrons become a community of friends who can read about the work we do and better understand why we do what we do and the process we go through in making each particular piece. Artists can also provide various rewards to our patrons based on the level of support provided. For example, my rewards range from a hearty "THANKS!" for a $1 monthly contribution to my tip jar, to a top reward of original pieces of art each quarter for someone with an interest in collecting.
What's my niche? I've created several different types of algorithmic art and I hope to share some examples of my work here on Patreon. For those who might be wondering, algorithmic art is a work of art that is produced entirely by a computer algorithm, a computer program written by the artist - it is essentially an artistic result that comes from a sequence of mathematical equations. You might think of the computer as the paint and canvas, while the algorithm is my paintbrush.
My programs range from simulations of physical contraptions that could never really exist in the real world to simply writing some math equations that I intentionally design to produce some image that I'd like to see appear on the virtual canvas of the computer. In the first case, I don't always have a particular result in mind and the image the algorithm produces is often a surprise -- if it's a good surprise a work of art is created! If not, I tweak the program and try again.
In the second case, I have an image in mind of what I'm trying to convince a computer to produce and I try to string together some mathematical equations that can make that image come to life. In either case, it's often the process that is the motivating factor for me, and not always the result. I ask myself, "what can I do with science and mathematics that can entice a computer to produce something new and interesting without human intervention" (other than saying "GO!")?
I don't touch up my art using Photoshop or other image-manipulation programs and I don't interfere with the algorithmic process by manually manipulating or changing an image. What I make comes directly out of the computer using the algorithms I've coded into the programs I write. At its core, every work I make is based purely on mathematics.
What are the Creations and Activity links about? Each time I create a new, "print-worthy" work of art I post the result to my Patreon Creations page (you can find the link at the top of this page). I try to make a new "Creation" three or four times each month. As I work through various issues and discuss what I'm trying to do and the process I go through to make my artwork, I post these discussions to the Activity page (the Activity link is up at the top of this page, too). I often post my failures, which quite often result in humorous images of one sort or another. Sometimes, a "failure" (when the resulting image is nothing like the result I was hoping for) ends up being something quite strange and different - and perhaps even becomes a work of art in its own right - even if it was not something I intended to make. Those are often the results that lead me in a new direction!
So, the Activity pages are kind of like an on-going blog about my process while the Creation pages show primarily just the end results, the final works.
Flowers from Algol: An Example of my Creative Process for Making Algorithmic Art. For the first few weeks I will share a perennial favorite that I've been working on for many years. In fact, I've been tweaking, and improving this particular algorithm for almost ten years. This algorithm produces a flower that emerges spontaneously from a blank canvas background, appearing to materialize out of empty space. I produce these flowers by running a computer program I've written to model a strange contraption. This strange and wonderful device consists of 1024 springs that are all connected to one another in a ring. My program models the physics of the springs, making their motion react like a set of real springs would react if they were stretched and released to vibrate in space. I simulate the process of stretching out the contraption, releasing it, and I then draw a fine line representing the position of each spring at an instant in time. After shortening the length of each spring by a small, random amount and then calculating the physics of motion and adjusting the new position of each spring over a very short duration of time, I draw their new positions and repeat this process many thousands of times. As the contraption collapses, a beautiful flower spontaneously emerges.
The image shown above (in the banner of this page) is a small thumbprint of an actual drawing. The original is over 12,000 x 15,000 pixels and is printed on heavyweight, 100% cotton rag, acid-free paper using archival-quality pigmented resin ink. You can see the full image at somewhat higher resolution than this thumbnail on my "Creations" page...it's the image for Week 1.