Hack Things - We help software people make hardware: If you didn’t guess from the name, WaterColorBot is a robot that paints watercolors. It’s a bit like a 3D-printer in that it’s a robot that layers materials using a motorized 2D-dimensional working surface, except there’s only one layer and the material is ordinary watercolor paint instead of plastics. The included software was pretty straight-forward (it very easily connected to the WaterColorBot via a USB cable, and presented a circe-1994 level draw app user user interface). There’s an API, but I haven’t checked it out yet. I do with it was controllable over wifi from an iPad, but perhaps someone in the community will take that project on.
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I love this artist so much and she is really talented. I love how she can mimic a huge variety of painting styles with her painting. She can convey so many style in an effective way. The contrast between the comic book girl to the watercolor one is incredible. The two that I thought were lacking in comparison to the others, are the two angry bird characters. In these, I can still clearly see the person within in the painting and certain aspects come off as distracting. I thought the beard threw off the overall composition. Mickey mouse was also pretty, but compared to the other paintings, I thought that this one was really lacking complexity. The woman's eyes throw off the illusion. Alexander is an amazing artist and her work is incredible. I wonder how long these paintings take to create?
I can see both the positive and negative aspects of this machine. Let's start off with the positive. I watched a clip on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGGBjnfPs5Y) about the girl who invented the machine, and her journey through it's mass production. Bravo to her! I think it is a great to use the idea of a laser cutter/3D printer and incorporate that knowledge into a watercolor printer. From the look on the young boy's face, it seems as if this machine mesmerizes young children because they can visually see the process of making a painting. They also see their own artwork come to life, which makes it more relatable to the child. It is also great that this machine introduces children to this technology at a very young age. I did see some problems with it, specifically because it uses watercolor as the medium. Watercolor is known as the unforgivable medium in painting: you cannot go over it or erase it. If you make a mistake, you have to deal with it. Watercolor is also susceptible to water bleeding, in which the pigment bleeds across the paper, creating an unwanted image. I could see from the boy's painting that the water did bleed. Although this machine is very cool, I can only look at it as a prototype. Will the Bot know how much water is soaked up in the brush? Would it know where the paper is wet, so bleeding won't occur? Will it ever be able to mix colors? I know these sound like very nit-picky questions, but overall, I think the idea is great. I would also like to applaud the young girl for challenging herself with the watercolor medium. It is unforgivable and a lot harder than acrylic paints. I would like to see what happens in the future with this product, and I can definitely see this product flying off the shelves during the holiday season.
While I see the article is emphasizing the great part of this machine by comparing it with 3D machine, I do not really see any use of this besides that it will be another fun and fancy toy for kids. I thought the whole point of drawing a painting with watercolor was for an expressive art of someone through various use of strokes, mix of colors, and techniques of painting. If I were the mother, I would not want to buy this machine. I would want my children to try to use watercolor and be creative with that medium. I would want my children to learn how it feels to paint with watercolor and what are the challenges and benefits of using this medium. Honestly, the only time I think someone will buy this machine is when a children needs a substitute to do an art assignment that is due soon. Looking at the machine, it seems to have so many limitations in terms of colors, mediums of papers, and size of brushes. For me, I really love using watercolor because depends on density of the water used and colors that are mixed, everything will be different. However, this machine does not seem to have this aspect of watercolor. It is a cool machine, but I honestly do not see this machine worthy of 295 dollars when I can just create my own watercolor art.
After reading the comments here I think that people may be missing the point of the Water Color Bot. I've actually been watching what both Sylvia and Evil Mad Scientist have been up to for a few years. I know it might sound crazy but this isn't a product that is meant to be effective at making water color paintings. It's not supposed to be used by the CMU prop shop to make paintings for shows or for hip young artists to try out new mediums. It's a kit that teaches young and old alike about CNC tech, electronics, and robotics, all while having a lot of fun. From what I can tell it's doing a great job at completing those goals. It's simple to set up so that anyone can use it, but it's also a pretty complex little bot and it can be modified how ever you want to. For example Lindsay Coda asked if the bot knew how much water was in the brush. I suspect that it does not, but If you felt like adding a little sensor and hooking it up to the micro-controller you could make your bot do that. This bot is doing some really great work teaching people about building their own robots and having fun.
My initial reaction to this robot was "why?" It isn't able to create fully developed watercolor paintings the way a human can, at least from what the article shows. It just appears to be repeating the lines that it is instructed to in watercolor paint- there isn't any variation in the watercolor weight, the fact that its watercolor instead of a different medium could almost be irrelevant. I recognize however, that this could just be what is shown in the article and perhaps the machine can produce more complicated watercoloring. My next question would then be, why do you want a machine that does that? That's what humans are for!
However, after reading Akiva's comment, I understand that this is not so much about the watercoloring capabilities as it is about the accessibility of the robot. Seeing it through the perspective of a sort of tool to teach about robots, I can see the value in this device.
I think that the WaterColorBot is a cool demonstration of available technology but I cannot imagine a practical use for it. The majority of art is special because of the soul the artist has put into it and this machine would mostly remove that personal touch. The machine also appears to have a fairly rudimentary input system that does not allow for complex detailed painting.
This is an interesting use of technology from other machines, but I can't find much of a practical use for it. The result looks like a child under the age of 5 made it. If someone were to want a higher quality piece with smaller details, I would be curious if the WaterColorBot would be able to produce such a result. It's an interesting concept, but I think it needs more development before it can actually be mass produced and sold.
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