Open Source Art Project

One interesting piece I recently saw was a bunch of colorful rectangles by Gerhard Richter .  This seemed like an easy piece to tackle first.  An example image is above and the Matlab code used to create it is linked below. richter_rectangles_basic.m - This is a basic Matlab file that will draw sets of rectangle with random (or fixed) coloration.  Number, sizing, spacing, color, and transparency can be modified. richter_rectangles_intermediate.m  - This is a intermediate Matlab file building on the basic example.  A function is used to draw the image so that parameters can easily be changed.  The full colormap can be provided so that a specific image can be rendered. richter_rectangles.m  - This is a bit more advanced Matlab file.  Different modes are available.  The function can be run in a loop.  An interactive mode can be used to save or print to file nicer versions of the image. JPG images are lossy, so PNG or PDF sho...

I have never thought of myself as an artist.  In elementary school, I was taken off group art projects because I had terrible coloring skills.  I never could draw or sketch or do anything that seemed artistic. When my brother was taking art, I wanted to try.   I was inspired by the abstract art of  Piet Mondrian . To make it easier, I tried making a similar geometric design using tape to mask parts of the canvas.  Even that was terrible, as I am just too messy and impatient. In college, we had to paint our pledge paddles.  Knowing I was not great at painting, I sought inspiration by Jackson Pollock .  My splashed on paddle actually ended up looking pretty good, but some folks did not like it since it looked like I just splashed paint on the wood.  In my daily life, the most artistic experience I get is playing with Powerpoint for making technical presentations.  Recently, I put together a kids book on behavior (Scout and Lout) ...

The Open Source Art Project (OSAP) works to promote the use of computers to generate art. The art presented here produced is free to use in any way, even commercially.  The computer code presented here is free to use and modify.  Some restrictions apply, see below. To contribute, I would ask that you supply working code under a GPL license, along with an example of the resulting image licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license.  My source code submissions are mostly  Matlab code.  I have tested some using the open source Matlab emulator Octave  and some even run in the online version of Octave.   Other possible source code types include Python, C, C++, Java, or similar.  PowerPoint / document files include instructions for making the computer perform actions, so they probably should be treated as source code. Art licensed under a Creative Commons license is great for public use and even modification.  However, without th...