Alchemy - free and open source drawing program with a twist

[velvet]

I discovered this gem of a program, Alchemy, on the weekend. Runs on Linux, Windows and Mac. Still in beta but not too buggy. I thought some here might find it interesting. And fun. It's more about playing around and stimulating ideas than producing polished artwork, more about accident than control, an image-maker rather than an image editor. You know how Leonardo da Vinci liked to stare at stains and see pictures in them - this works in a similar way. There are a lot of interesting tools to fool with, tools that randomise the output in various ways. And sliders and stuff to limit the randomness to a degree.

Here's what the developers say about it ...

alchemy |’alkemē
Figurative: a process by which paradoxical results are achieved or incompatible elements combined with no obvious rational explanation.

Alchemy is an open drawing project aimed at exploring how we can sketch, draw, and create on computers in new ways. Alchemy isn’t software for creating finished artwork, but rather a sketching environment that focuses on the absolute initial stage of the creation process. Experimental in nature, Alchemy lets you brainstorm visually to explore an expanded range of ideas and possibilities in a serendipitous way.

http://al.chemy.org/

The Gallery on the Alchemy site doesn't quite do justice to the possibilities for experiment within this program. Digging around on the Sketches board of the Alchemy users forum I found people taking it in many different directions. e.g. this thread: http://al.chemy.org/forum/sketches/topic595.html It seems to be particularly popular among VJs and concept artists, but though I'm neither I'm digging it because I like making art that involves an element of chance.

Best thing about it, apart from the fun and the surprises, is that it creates in vector format. So you can take it into Illustrator or Inkscape or whatever and scale it. You can output to SVG, PNG and PDF plus you can save a whole session to a multi-page PDF.

Amazingly, it doesn't have undo!!1!! Since it's all about spontaneity, undo wasn't a priority for the developers. But I gather due to popular demand it's in the pipeline.

[Occulus]

1. Wow, some of the artwork on that page is actually very professional-looking

I'd expect those sorts of things on T-shirts. This could be a useful tool under the right circumstances...

[velvet]

2. yes

My favourite image from the forum thread is Mr OK.

I'm not getting nor expecting instant gratification, though there have been one or two pleasant surprises amongst the dross I've produced with it so far. But I can see it's worth putting in some time to learn how best to use it.