June 2024 was a huge month for Printmaking, Figure Drawing and AI ART -- aka the The Good, The Bad and The Ugly:
DRAWINGS
PRINTMAKING
I did a lot of printmaking in June -- mostly ramping up the EXQUISITE TESSELLATION PRINT project.
PRINT EXCHANGE
Durango, Mexico
I used AI to make a print, and sent an edition of 5 to a print exchange run by Laboratorio Siete Vidas of Durango, Mexico. The theme was the April 8, 2024 solar eclipse:
** BUCKET EXHBITIONS **
I blogged about the biggest print endeavors on the BUCKET EXHIBITIONS blog:
COLLABORATION of 5
Five of us made linocut prints, from the April 23, 2024 model session at Henry Morales' studio.
The 5 Albuquerque Artists (top to bottom):
- Ellie Weadock
- Casandra Encinias
- Karl Whitaker
- Virgil Velasco
- Henry Morales
LIVE PRINTMAKING
at the
ALBUQUERQUE RAILYARDS
I used Midjourney AI to generate some round images of portraits and animals. Then I laser cut those AI images at Quelab -- into linoleum circles, with a 4 inch diameter.
I printed those round "street taco" prints on a Tortilla Press -- at the ABQ Railyard Market, on Sunday, June 9, 2024 -- with the Quelab Mini-Maker section:
GUERILLA TESSELLATION PRINT --
at the SOUTH BROADWAY CULTURAL CENTER
Ellie and Daniel hand printed our first legitimate EXQUSITE TESSELLATION PRINT during the Post Covid Bomb opening at the South Broadway Cultural Center in Albuquerque on June 14, 2024:
NOTE: Our BIG INK print was hanging in this Post Covid Bomb exhibition.
TESSELATION RUMBLING
The linocuts were trickling in, but faster than I could keep up. So I made a TESSELLATION RUMBLING blog entry to chronicle what was going on:
SANTA FE --
EXQUISITE TESSELLATION PRINT
We went up to impose on Mike Kimball at the Santa Fe Community College to make a tessellation print on Friday, June 28, 2024:
AI ART
The biggest AI buzz this month was the new online AI Video programs that surfaced in June, so I had to try them:
My best PixVerse animation
UGLY AI VIDEO
My most unpopular AI Video got "no views" for the longest time -- and it is not pretty.
However this video is the most conceptual. I recycled the FAKE KRRRL drawings made by AI in 2020, and ran them through new AI programs:
Old AI:
- StyleGAN2 in Runway ML (to generate fake KRRRL drawings in 2020)
New AI:
- Deep Dream Generator (new AI Upscaler feature, 100% Creative setting)
- KREA.AI (Image Enhancer)
- Leonardo.AI (Universal Upscaler)
- YouTube Playlist of what others are making -- Random AI VIDEOS
Soon they are promising that you can just prompt your own whole TV show...
John Tollett sent this quote from Douglas Adams:
“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
