Pencil Sketches Research Articles

Artistic robotic pencil sketching using closed-loop force control

This study introduces an artistic robotic painting system. The main purpose was to use a force sensor combined with a 6-axis robotic arm to create pencil sketches. Compared with other painting robots, our system has additional tactile sensing that can overcome the problem of pencil wear and can simulate the feeling of human sketches. To provide the robot with the capability to create paintings, our experiment used neural style transfer technology to extract the content and style image features and recomposed them into a new artwork. The newly generated image was processed for edge detection and further layered using methods, such as k-means clustering and image grayscale quantisation, resulting in a contour layer and multiple background layers. We carried out path planning of different layers according to the layering result, and we sorted the pixels by finding the shortest distance between them to plan a feasible path for the robotic arm at a higher speed. Finally, in the robotic arm painting experiment, we conducted two types of art creation: Chinese brush painting and pencil sketching. In the first type, we used position control to create a Chinese brush painting, and in the second type, we used a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller for force control to create pencil sketching. The experimental results show the validity of the proposed techniques in artistic robotic painting, both in Chinese brush painting and pencil sketching, with painting times of less than 30 min.

The Leading Role of the Pencil Sketch in the Visual Arts

Pencil is the basis of all fine arts. Regardless of the type of art the artist creates, it is based on pencil drawing.

Dr. Phil's Art Corner: Spitfire Above and Whales Below.

Philip Alexander, MD, is a native Texan, retired physician, and accomplished musician and artist. After 41 years as an internal medicine physician, Dr. Phil retired from his practice in College Station in 2016. A lifelong musician and former music professor, he often performs as an oboe soloist for the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra. He began exploring visual art in 1980, evolving from pencil sketches—including an official White House portrait of President Ronald Reagan—to the computer-generated drawings featured in this journal. His images, which first appeared in this journal in the spring of 2012, are his own original creations.To learn more about Dr. Phil and his art, read “Art and Medicine with Dr. Phil” in issue 13.2.

Sketch Generation with Drawing Process Guided by Vector Flow and Grayscale

We propose a novel image-to-pencil translation method that could not only generate high-quality pencil sketches but also offer the drawing process. Existing pencil sketch algorithms are based on texture rendering rather than the direct imitation of strokes, making them unable to show the drawing process but only a final result. To address this challenge, we first establish a pencil stroke imitation mechanism. Next, we develop a framework with three branches to guide stroke drawing: the first branch guides the direction of the strokes, the second branch determines the shade of the strokes, and the third branch enhances the details further. Under this framework's guidance, we can produce a pencil sketch by drawing one stroke every time. Our method is fully interpretable. Comparison with existing pencil drawing algorithms shows that our method is superior to others in terms of texture quality, style, and user evaluation. Our code and supplementary material are now available at: https://github.com/TZYSJTU/Sketch-Generation-withDrawing-Process-Guided-by-Vector-Flow-and-Grayscale

Arctic Visible

This paper describes progress of the ongoing postdoctoral project ARCVIS. The project is funded by a two-year individual fellowship from Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (2019-2021). ARCVIS gathers, maps, and disseminates representations of Indigenous peoples in the western Arctic (Greenland, Canada, Alaska) between 1800 and 1880. The material is comprised of watercolours, pencil sketches, photographs, and prints, such as lithographs, woodcuts, and engravings. The visual material is scattered in archives around the world and this project’s aim is to gather that material together and display it geographically, linked to its places of origin in the Arctic. A key element of this project is the collation and interpretation of the material through an open access online geospatial platform, which combines the visuality of exploration and travel with digital methods that seek to bring out the richly contextual information often bypassed in visual documentary records. The project will present the peopled western Arctic that was encountered by ‘explorers.’ Through the analysis of picture and text in archives and published lnineteenth-century texts, it will strive to give ‘voice’ to the Indigenous people who were key to the success or failure of expeditions from the south. The project challenges the common outsider perception of the Arctic, which is often seen as an empty, icy region, devoid of human populations. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has not been possible to include ‘new’ archival sources and the online platform will now only use images and texts available online and in the public domain.

Scalable image decomposition

Image decomposition, which separates a given input image into structure and texture images, has been used for various applications in the fields of computer graphics and image processing. Most previous image decomposition algorithms and applications start with high-quality images, but it requires numerous steps to separate and edit the high-resolution structure and texture images from the low-resolution input counterparts. This paper proposes a simple but effective end-to-end deep neural image decomposition network, which is called ”scalable image decomposition”, by decomposing and upscaling structure and texture images from the degraded input image at the same time. We train the deep neural network to automatically estimate high-resolution structure and texture from the low-resolution input image by designing a shared feature extractor, and structure and texture upscaling networks which have a powerful capability to establish and distinguish a complex mapping between the low-resolution input image and high-quality structure and texture, while preserving more contextual information without any prior information regarding the low-resolution input image. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the proposed scalable image decomposition network validate that the proposed method is stable and robust against blurring and staircase effects by separating texture and structure upscaling networks in real-time. The predicted upscaled structure and texture images can be used to a variety of applications, such as image abstraction, detail enhancement, and pencil sketching.

The importance of painting in the development of creative fantasy

Painting is the basis of all types of fine art. The basis of painting is painting, regardless of which of the types of fine art the artist creates. His observations, research on the compositions of a large work, he sets out first with preliminary pencil sketches. The article discusses the importance of painting in the development of spatial representations and creative imagination in architectural education, as well as in various design methods. The interest in painting has long fascinated people. Because it was necessary for the people ofprimitive times to communicate, to speak. It is known from history that most of the images are based on how ancient people who were engaged in hunting hunted animals. They followed the trails of the animals and left various images and signs on the rocks and caves. Over time, as a result of the development of their imaginative skills, various hunting scenes later began to be reflected in a way that had a unique initial compositional solution.

Dr. Phil's Art Corner: B-47 High and Hunters High.

Philip Alexander, MD, is a native Texan, retired physician, and accomplished musician and artist. After 41 years as an internal medicine physician, Dr. Phil retired from his practice in College Station in 2016. A lifelong musician and former music professor, he often performs as an oboe soloist for the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra. He began exploring visual art in 1980, evolving from pencil sketches—including an official White House portrait of President Ronald Reagan—to the computer-generated drawings featured in this journal. His images, which first appeared in this journal in the spring of 2012, are his own original creations. To learn more about Dr. Phil and his art, read “Art and Medicine with Dr. Phil” in issue 13.2.

Pengenalan sketsa wajah menggunakan principle component analysis sebagai aplikasi forensik

Recognition of human faces in forensics applications can be identified through the Sketch recognition method by matching sketches and photos. The system gives five criminal candidates who have similarities to the sketch given. This study aims to perform facial recognition on photographs and sketches using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) as feature extraction and Euclidean distance as a calculation of the distance of test images to training images. The PCA method was used to recognize facial images from pencil sketch drawings. The system dataset is in the form of photos and sketches in the CUHK Face Sketch database consists of 93 photos and 93 sketches, and personal documentation consists of five photos and five sketches. The sketch matching application to training data produces an accuracy of 76.14 %, precision of 91.04 %, and recall of 80.26 %, while testing with sketch modifications produces accuracy and recall of 95 % and precision of 100 %.

Dr. Phil's Art Corner: Abstract Series.

Philip Alexander, MD, is a native Texan, retired physician, and accomplished musician and artist. After 41 years as an internal medicine physician, Dr. Phil retired from his practice in College Station in 2016. A lifelong musician and former music professor, he often performs as an oboe soloist for the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra. He began exploring visual art in 1980, evolving from pencil sketches—including an official White House portrait of President Ronald Reagan—to the computer-generated drawings featured in this journal. His images, which first appeared in this journal in the spring of 2012, are his own original creations. To learn more about Dr. Phil and his art, read “Art and Medicine with Dr. Phil” in issue 13.2.

Nude Pencil Sketch beyond the Vanishing Point

Other| February 01 2020 Nude Pencil Sketch beyond the Vanishing Point Elton Glaser Elton Glaser Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Italian Americana (2020) XXXVIII (1): 47. https://doi.org/10.5406/2327753X.38.1.09 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Elton Glaser; Nude Pencil Sketch beyond the Vanishing Point. Italian Americana 1 February 2020; XXXVIII (1): 47. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/2327753X.38.1.09 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressItalian Americana Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2016 Carla Anne Simonini & Carol Bonomo Albright2016 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Vikings and Sailing in the Rain

Philip Alexander, MD, is a native Texan, retired physician, and accomplished musician and artist. After 41 years as an internal medicine physician, Dr. Phil retired from his practice in College Station in 2016. A lifelong musician and former music professor, he often performs as an oboe soloist for the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra. He began exploring visual art in 1980, evolving from pencil sketches—including an official White House portrait of President Ronald Reagan—to the computer-generated drawings featured in this journal. His images, which first appeared in this journal in the spring of 2012, are his own original creations. To learn more about Dr. Phil and his art, read “Art and Medicine with Dr. Phil” in issue 13.2.

A proof of concept for low-cost rechargeable aqueous aluminium-ion batteries

In an effort to develop $$\hbox {Al}^{3+}$$ ion-based rechargeable electrochemical cells, there is massive exploration of appropriate electrode materials in contemporary times. Aluminium is a natural choice due to its high abundance, low cost and easy processing. Herein, the working of rechargeable aqueous aluminium-ion batteries which comprise graphite from pencil sketch as the cathode, $$\hbox {TiO}_{{2}}$$ as the anode and an $$\hbox {Al}^{3+}$$ ion conducting aqueous electrolyte is demonstrated for the first time. The aluminium-ion cell delivers a discharge voltage of 1.5 V and stable specific capacities of $$\hbox {25 mAh g}^{-1}$$ over 1000 cycles. This proof of concept emphasizes on the possibility of achieving sustainable, easy to assemble and low-cost rechargeable batteries.

Masked Linear Regression for Learning Local Receptive Fields for Facial Expression Synthesis

Compared to facial expression recognition, expression synthesis requires a very high-dimensional mapping. This problem exacerbates with increasing image sizes and limits existing expression synthesis approaches to relatively small images. We observe that facial expressions often constitute sparsely distributed and locally correlated changes from one expression to another. By exploiting this observation, the number of parameters in an expression synthesis model can be significantly reduced. Therefore, we propose a constrained version of ridge regression that exploits the local and sparse structure of facial expressions. We consider this model as masked regression for learning local receptive fields. In contrast to the existing approaches, our proposed model can be efficiently trained on larger image sizes. Experiments using three publicly available datasets demonstrate that our model is significantly better than $\ell_0, \ell_1$ and $\ell_2$-regression, SVD based approaches, and kernelized regression in terms of mean-squared-error, visual quality as well as computational and spatial complexities. The reduction in the number of parameters allows our method to generalize better even after training on smaller datasets. The proposed algorithm is also compared with state-of-the-art GANs including Pix2Pix, CycleGAN, StarGAN and GANimation. These GANs produce photo-realistic results as long as the testing and the training distributions are similar. In contrast, our results demonstrate significant generalization of the proposed algorithm over out-of-dataset human photographs, pencil sketches and even animal faces.

Księga Twarzy. Rysunki Brunona Schulza w Bystrzycy Kłodzkiej

Bruno Schulz’s drawings in which we may find the faces of his friends and colleagues, the students and teachers of the Drogobych high school, have been scattered. Most of them perished during World War II. Some of those which have been preserved now belong to private collections. Thanks to a favorable coincidence, some pencil sketches by Schulz have been found in such a collection. They show an intriguing young woman, Stanisława Szczepańska, who in 1934-1936 worked as an unpaid teacher at the Drogobych high school. There she met Schulz who drew her portraits during school breaks as well as during lessons, when he would come in, take a seat in the last row, and draw her face. Until now little has been known about Szczepańska. After so many years it is worth disclosing a secret: who was she? What happened to her later? How did it happen that Schulz noticed her? How was it possible to save the drawings? The present paper provides answers to these and many other questions as the author has made an attempt to show how Szczepańska’s biography became a part of Schulz’s artistic heritage. Pencil sketches definitely belong to a more general project of the Drogobych artist as exercises in portraying faces both in drawing and fiction. Studying faces was very important to Schulz. In his work, the drawing practice and fiction are closely related to each other. To find out more about them, it is essential to find and save Schulz’s scattered works. This postulate has been articulated in the paper supplemented with the reproductions of Schulz’s sketches and photographs from the Hoffmann family collection. The portraits of Szczepańska tell a unique story – about charm, the art of seeing, and Schulz’s Book of Faces.

Eagle Over Snowy Arch and St. George

Philip Alexander, MD, is a native Texan, retired physician, and accomplished musician and artist. After 41 years as an internal medicine physician, Dr. Phil retired from his practice in College Station in 2016. A lifelong musician and former music professor, he often performs as an oboe soloist for the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra. He began exploring visual art in 1980, evolving from pencil sketches—including an official White House portrait of President Ronald Reagan—to the computer-generated drawings featured in this journal. His images, which first appeared in this journal in the spring of 2012, are his own original creations. To learn more about Dr. Phil and his art, read “Art and Medicine with Dr. Phil” in issue 13.2.

DEM based Terrain Sketch Mapping in a Loess Landform by considering visual hierarchy and feature generalization

Abstract. A terrain sketch map can effectively describe the terrain features and spatial pattern of a landscape, which are sketched with lines by a geographer after recognizing, analyzing and summarizing the features of a terrain scene to present his/her understanding of a landscape (Bao 1956, Chen 1958, Liu 1988). Compared with a digital elevation model (DEM) scene map, a terrain sketch map, as a scientific abstraction and expression of geomorphological features from the perspective view, is characterized by conciseness and profoundness to show the intrinsic features of a landscape. With the rapid development of computer visualization and digital terrain analysis methods, computer-assisted terrain sketches based on DEM may be automatically generated, depending on geographic cognition theory and the sketch description method. Previous research has generated terrain scene maps based on DEM data and has produced various styles of terrain maps, i.e. oil painting, ink painting, pen and pencil sketch maps (Visvalingam et al. 1998, Whelan et al. 2003, Way et al. 2006, Bhattacharjee et al. 2008). However, those computer-drawn sketch maps have focused on the artistic effect rather than depicting terrain features and landform structures. Moreover, the area used for sketch mapping in those researches was relatively small, and visual hierarchy was not considered. Thus, those maps differ considerably from hand-drawn sketch maps by geographers or geologists. Therefore, this paper aims to generate terrain sketch map which can express terrain features as well as artistic effect. In this study, one loess ridge-hill area (Wuqi) in the loess plateau of China was selected by considering the typicality of the geomorphic types and the availability of data. The 5 m resolution DEM data was obtained from the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation, with an area of 102 km2. Three aspects as terrain features, visual hierarchy and feature generalization were considered in this paper. Firstly, the typical terrain features must be presented in the sketch map. The loess shoulder line, bank gully lines and surface flow lines in loess landform area were extracted (Yang et al. 2017, Yang et al. 2018). Then based on the Bresenham algorithm (Bresenham 1965), the visual outlines in perspective view were generated. Secondly, the visual hierarchy is considered in this study. In a terrain sketch map, more topographically-detailed information is described in the near view, whereas only the approximate outlines and less topographical information are displayed in the distant view. Therefore, a self-adapted visual hierarchy division method was proposed. The scenes are visually divided into three levels, i.e. near view, medium view and distant view. Different numbers and types of terrain features are assigned to each visual level to obtain the effect of clear near and blurred distant views. Thirdly, in complexity terrain area, the scene will not only look staggered and messy, but will also affect topographic recognition even only visual outlines are displayed in distant view. Therefore a method of combining DEM and visual watershed generalization was proposed to simplify the visual outlines in distant view. Finally, the terrain sketch map is assessed and verified through a questionnaire survey which includes three specialist experts, seven graduate students and twelve undergraduate students with knowledge in geomorphology or geography. The result show that the important feature lines added to the terrain sketch map could effectively help to recognize the typical landform characteristics in the loess plateau of China. The severity of soil erosion by gullies are obviuosly presented (Fig.1d) comparing to the sketch mapping with only visual outlines (Fig1b). The map look messy and unsigtly if all the terrain feature lines were put into the map (Fig.1c). By considering the law of air perspective, the visual hierarchy was divided and the visual outlines in the distant view was generalized, thereby realizing the characteristics of a terrain sketch map clear in near view and blurred in distant view (Fig.1d). It also showed from the questionnaire that DEM resolution influence the performance of our method especially with coarse resolution DEM. The experts suggested that filter noise in near view and generalisation in distant view can be further improved.

Dr. Phil's Art Corner: Chevyhenge.

Philip Alexander, MD, is a native Texan, retired physician, and accomplished musician and artist. After 41 years as an internal medicine physician, Dr. Phil retired from his practice in College Station in 2016. A lifelong musician and former music professor, he often performs as an oboe soloist for the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra. He began exploring visual art in 1980, evolving from pencil sketches to the computer-generated drawings featured in this journal. His images, which first appeared in this journal in the spring of 2012, are his own original creations. To learn more about Dr. Phil and his art, read "Art and Medicine with Dr. Phil" in issue 13.2.

Non-invasive photoacoustic detection of hidden underdrawings in paintings using air-coupled transducers

We demonstrate the application of a fully non-contact and non-invasive photoacoustic (PA) imaging system integrating a high sensitivity spherically focused air-coupled ultrasonic transducer, for the uncovering of hidden underdrawings in paintings. By selectively transforming optical absorption information into ultrasonic waves which propagate virtually unobstructed through the paint layers, PA signals provide specific imaging of underlying pencil sketches even for paints presenting high optical scattering and absorption properties. The developed system could be employed for case studies involving the investigation of paintings with historical significance, considerably complementing the capabilities of existing methods.

The Remember Balloons by J. Oliveros

Oliveros, Jessie. The Remember Balloons. Illustrated by Dana Wulfekotte, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Children – Simon and Schuster, 2018
 This beautifully written story tells of a young boy and his dear relationship with his aging Grandfather. Connected through balloons that hold memories and stories, the young boy notices his Grandfather begins to lose his balloons and eventually his memory, even of knowing his beloved grandson. Confused and upset, the young boy cannot understand why this is happening and tries in vain to save his Grandfather’s balloons. Saddened, the boy seeks his parent’s help whereby they show him that he now has a whole new set of balloons—his Grandfather’s. In acquiring these treasured memories, the young boy discovers a new way to be with his Grandfather through retelling him all his old stories.
 Illustrated in pencil sketch with minimal colour other than the varied and vibrant balloons, Oliveros speaks to children in a beautifully relatable manner about memories and stories and the connections to the people we cherish. It gently acknowledges the difficult changes in relationships as a loved one experiences the changes of aging and memory loss and guides the reader to find new ways to experience their stories and build new connections.
 The subtle acknowledgement of mixed-race families and friend groups also lends itself to a realistic and contemporary view of family and culture, further strengthening the relatability of this story to a wider readership.
 Recommended and appropriately written for ages 5-9 years, the book’s themes of keeping our memories close in our varied balloons and maintaining our connections with family even as relationships change, lends itself to a far greater age demographic.
 Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Deanna Townsend
 Deanna Townsend is currently an Open Studies student and prospective graduate student with the Master of Library and Information Studies program at the University of Alberta. She is currently working in the Learning Commons/Library of an Elementary-Junior High School with Edmonton Public School Board. Her keen area of interest is in the transformation of school libraries/learning commons to modern, usable education spaces that inspire children to explore and learn beyond the classroom.