Now for something completely different...

Today's post is about a piece that's totally different from anything I've ever done before. Actually, this piece started as a "practical joke". Then it turned out to be much much more work than I anticipated, I got ambitious, and that's how the piece turned out the way it did. In my other life I work on user interfaces for software. In that job I often create prototypes or, more often, sketches and mockups of user interfaces. As I feel quite comfortable using traditional media for these sketches (many people prefer to do such work using powerpoint or similar tools), these sketches often are hand-drawn pencil or pen sketches, sometimes colorized with colored pencils.

After I got into fine art I often joked that "my next UI design will be done in oil on canvas". Finally, I decided I needed to make good on that threat. Except, that this is not my next design (I couldn't show that here because it probably would be confidential information) but rather a painting of a screenshot of the user interface I worked on last year: The TPC 3.1 Topology viewer. I won't talk about it in detail here (booooring) but just say that it turned out to be much harder to actually do than I thought.

First of all, it's acrylic on canvas, and not oil on canvas mostly because I ran out of time (I needed the piece at a certain date), and acrylic was just the more appropriate medium for this task to start with. The piece is also quite large: 30" x 40". Then came the issue of colors. It IS a painting of a screenshot after all. So the colors have to be somewhat correct. But acrylics don't come in "Java Swing UI - Window title bar purplish/blue". Therefore the project started out with several hours experimenting to mix approximately the right colors. It didn't have to be exactly right, but it had to be close enough that when somebody saw the piece from across the room they should have that initial response of "what the heck... somebody just posted a large printout of a screenshot". And then they would look at it closer and notice that it's not quite a screen shot. Then they would walk closer and notice there are just lines where there should be text. Then closer and notice that this is not a screenshot at all!!! Closer - "oh my gosh it's a painting"!!!

I soon realized that I had never painted long straight lines. Surprise... I didn't even have the right tools to do that! I ended up having to buy several new brushes for this project. Another issue was the text in the painting. There is LOTS of it. There was no way I would paint all of it. The goal was not to make a photorealistic rendition of the interface, after all (the canvas I chose was also way too coarse for photorealism). I ended up hinting at the text as straight lines, which works well. But there were a few lines that were too large to be indicated just by lines. I did those as squiggly lines. In hindsight I wish I hadn't done that - it would have been better to stick with the straight lines. But it works well enough.

So it definitely was quite a challenge - a fun one. I can highly recommend such a project as exercise. It really teaches you about the limits of your technique and forces you to learn new ones, using tools you may not have used before, or using your tools in a way you never thought of before.

By the way: the "practical joke" was meant for my colleagues who had worked with me on that project, of course. I wanted to watch them walk into the room, see that piece, stop for a moment, come closer, frown, smile and eventually crack up laughing. Judging by there reaction at the show the piece was a total success :)