The Yora Draw Pen Plotter Meets Generative Art

What is Generative Art?

Generative Art generally refers to computer generated art.

The term is also used to describe geometric abstract art where simple elements are repeated, transformed, or varied to generate more complex forms, think grown-up Spirograph.

Remember the circular plastic pieces that you used to run around with a pen to create complex patterns, well, welcome to the computer age and the opportunities to generate art with computer code.

Before anyone goes “Urghhhh not for me, I’m no computer expert and coding is beyond me”, please remember this is me writing this, if there is an easy way to do something, I’m going to find it!

What do you need to create Generative Art?

Besides the computer generating side of the process, you need a pen plotter, a drawing robot - a pen plotter is a computer-controlled machine that draws graphics or text with incredible speed and precision.

The image is created by one or more writing implements, which are raised, lowered, and moved over the printing media to draw.

Say hello to the Yora Draw Professional Writing & Drawing Robot

The YoraHome Professional Writing & Drawing Robot is an extremely versatile machine. It is a simple, modern and precise pen plotter, designed to serve a wide variety of every day and expert drawing or writing needs on almost any flat surface.

Using the Yora Draw

I’ll also admit it had been a while since I’d used my YoraDraw and I’d forgotten how easy to use it and how much fun.

For a basic guide of how to use the Yora Draw you can check out the blog “ What Can You Do With The Yora Draw?”

To start this time, I thought I’d just try a simple image from my computer to test everything still worked as expected.

Having set the pen in place, 2/3 mm above the paper, I ran the preview to check where the image would draw, then pressed start.

The image appeared as clear and sharp as I remembered the Yora Draw being able to produce.

Using Generative Art Software

Next was to try out the Generative Art process.

Any Google search of "How to create Generative Art" will lead you down a massive rabbit hole, taking in learning how to write code, various options to download a variety of free and paid programs with mind boggling numbers of parameters to alter to generate a new image. Phew…………..

Cutting to the chase, I found a couple of simple easy to use options.

Using Acrylicode with the Yora Draw

Open the link into acrylicode.

When the page opens, using the mouse, draw a shape, anything, a simple line or a random shape.

Click on Harmonise.

This opens the control box.

Using the slider, you can adjust the number of shapes.

Using the rotation angle slider will change the image again.

You can change it further with the Zoom and Scaling Factor sliders.

When you have finished tweaking the image, save the svg.

Taking the image into Yora Draw is a simple process, by opening the svg and setting the image size etc. using just a normal ball point pen you can create a spectacular generative art image.

Using UJI with the Yora Draw

Another program that creates art for you is UJI.

When you open UJI, in the top left corner are various buttons, each will open a new version of the image.

The sliders underneath the buttons will make further adjustments.

Once you settle on the design you want, click on Export.

Choose your file format, use png and save the file.

Big word to the wise with this one, set aside a few hours, you can get so involved with making changes and little tweaks you will suddenly realise time has passed and what you had right at the start was your favourite. Anything you think you might use, export the file and save it, trying to replicate something you did previously is almost impossible.

Having looked at various generative art websites, I had a few ideas on using different materials, inks, pens and backgrounds.

Using Alcohol Inks for Backgrounds

I checked out how to use alcohol inks to colour my background, unfortunately I missed the bit on the instructions that said to cut off the tip of the bottle, so squeezing the bottle resulted in rather more of the ink coming out that I planned as the whole top came off.

Trying again, I got a bit better result, not brilliant, but I thought I’d try the image I’d generated in UJI.

Importing the png doesn’t look so good to begin.

Double clicking the image will open the picture options. Click on the invert colours button.

This will change your image to what you need.

 You can then adjust the size of the image.

Click OK and return to the Canvas.

Right click on the image, then select Centre.

The image will then be centred on the canvas ready to draw.

Using Different Pens with the Yora Draw

The first attempt at the image showed the pen I was using was too thick to show any great detail anyway. So, I tried with firstly a Sharpie, then an ultra-fine Sharpie.

Convinced that I could combine an alcohol ink background with generative art, I tried again with a silver ultra-fine pen on another image.

I was getting closer to what I had imagined, but the silver wasn’t quite visible enough, so I went back to my first image and tried using a black rollerball liquid ink pen.

Now that was what I was after!

Conclusion

I knew that the YoraHome Writing & Drawing Robot was a great machine and was capable of producing some amazing images and text on various materials, but trying out generative art has now added another alternative to what is possible.

YoraHome have such a variety of machines from CNC Routers to Laser Engravers (diode, CO2, Fiber). You are sure to find the ideal option for you and your creativity.

You may even join the ranks of YoraHome customers making a second income from what starts with a hobby and becomes a passion – you have been warned!