Sunday 30 April 2023

April 2023 Review

I was very active showing PRINTS in April, as well as pushing AI ART a little further -- and ultimately blending the AI  Art with printmaking, by laser engraving into linoleum.


One of the big highlights of the month was showing prints at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque, on the back of Mitchell's bicycle coffee cart on April 21st, 2023.  We were part of the Quelab crew:







PRINT SANTA FE

The big event of April 2023 was PRINT SANTA FE 2023, through the whole month of April:


Our participation was minimal, but we did get a BUCKET EXHIBITIONS print show at the Santa Fe Community College, from the second week of April to the end of May:




I showed prints during the drawing session on April 4th at Argos Studio/Gallery in Santa Fe;



Then I showed essentially the same prints in Albuquerque on April 6th, during the drawing session at the North Fourth Art Center:



We did some live printmaking on Canyon Road, in front of Hecho A Mano gallery again, during the MiniPrint opening, on Saturday, April 29th,, 2023:



Enrique Flores came from Oaxaca to exhibit at HECHO Gallery in Santa Fe; I attended the opening on Friday, April 7th, and the talk on Saturday, April 8th, 2023:



I also took the Relief Printmaking Workshop from Tim Pauszek on April 7th, 2023, at Artisans Santa Fe art store:



AI ART

I pushed AI Art further in April, using Midjourney, Leonardo.AI and Mage Space


PROBLEMS

  • On Easter I was locked out of Midjourney.  Apparently my Vanilla VISA Gift Card balance did not go through.  Moreover the VISA Gift Card website usually won't give me my balance.  The clerks at Walgreens said that they have a lot of problems with the VISA Gift Cards.  So the solution is to pay with an American Express Gift Card.

    • Leonardo.AI will not accept either an American Express Gift Card nor the VISA Gift Card.  I believe this is because the company is based in Australia, but there could be other reasons they don't like my money.
    • Moreover the day after Easter I had a big glitch with Leonardo.AI as they didn't recognize my "Krrrl" log in.  I had to change my name to "Krrrrl" with four Rs, but then I could not use my custom models, trained on my drawing style.  This apparently was a glitch on their end, when they made us update our login a while back.



MIDJOURNEY

Ultimately I was really happy with the Midjourney AI twists on the photos I took around Quelab, especially of the airplane they are building there:






LEONARDO.AI

However Midjourney censors my drawings, while Leonardo.AI allows me to upload my figure drawings and  make FAKE Krrrl drawings.  Still, after adding my style, I don't have much control over what Leonardo.AI generates.

Several times I uploaded five of my drawings to Leonardo.AI, using a model based on my drawing style, and it generated FAKE Krrrl drawings:




FAKE drawing in my style
generated in Leonardo.AI


On April 9th Leonardo.AI offered "Texture Generation" for 3D models:



MAGE SPACE
 



LASER ENGRAVED PRINTS

I started pushing the laser cutter at Quelab to engrave linoleum and make prints.  This opens up new possibilities.  

I can solicit images from all over the world and make linocut prints from them.  Xavier Moreno emailed an image from Guadalajara, and I laser engraved and printed it in Albuquerque:



This way we can expand our BUCKET EXHIBITIONS to include works from all over the planet.  If ten people around the globe emailed images, we could have a pop-up exhibition within the week.


Moreover we can pull AI images off the computer, by laser engraving them into linoleum and printing them, like I did below:



OTHER

The Iron Man was resurrected in Albuquerque on April 4th at :








There was another fire on April 11th near Quelab, at 6th and Haines.  This is the second time that building has caught fire.  Mitch called 911 and took photos:



SOFTWARE

Tortilla Press Printing -- PRINT SANTA FE

This post is also on the BUCKET EXHIBITIONS blog.