iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

#52 "Freedom" (Accompanied by soundcloud.com/robynmeows/f... , read on for explanation) With this project's end, I wanted to do something ambitious & showcase what I had learnt, after throwing myself into a year-long undertaking of something I had no natural talent or inclination for.

6x6" acrylics on canvas. Under the sea, the arms of an anthro cheetah reach down and hold onto 2 ends of the same rusty chain, which has broken in the middle

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

#51 "Demon II" Acrylics, ink Back when I made #17, "Demon", I made a second identical version at the same time. I then sat this copy in the windowsill, or even outside when dry in the summer, to try and deliberately sunbleach it.

6x6" acrylics and ink on canvas. An evil-looking humanoid with elongated limbs and claws, towers menacingly in front of an inky black background. The background shows some bleaching but it's still relatively dark

As before, compared to the original (left) which is noticeably darker, but not so much that the tone of the piece changes

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

#50 "In the Mountain" Originally this was supposed to be #31, depicting a scene in my pirate d&d campaign where the player-characters come to a cave near the summit of a mountain, inside which is a void that acts as a direct communication point to the villain, Davy Jones.

6x6" acrylics and pen on canvas. A mountain is cut through to reveal a dark void interior where 3 adventurers (Silas, snow leopard tabaxi fighter/wizard; Vaerellen, drow fighter; Fulgur, air genasi sorcerer/bard) walk down a narrow interior path while one other (Scrabble, human rogue/bard) flies using winged boots. Below them, in the void, Davy Jones is visible with writhing tentacles and a tricorn hat

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

#49 "Lily" Afraid there's nothing too deep about this week's one. I had some paint left over after doing a separate piece, and I decided to paint something colourful in the "wrong" colours. Kinda gives a negative vibe.

6x6" acrylics on canvas. A lily flower, with several leaves, but the leaves and stem are red, and the flower is mostly a mix of minty green and purple

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

#48 "Wolf" I've been dipping back into digital art recently, during which I've been trying to drag myself away from my old MLP-derived style to something closer to my paintings, with mixed success. This week I tried learning how to paint realistic-looking fur, leading to this study of a timber wolf

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

#47 "Adrift" I have a naive outlook on life where everything eventually works out in the end. But I know, in reality, things don't always work out that way. You can fail, you can be mistreated, some major event can send you reeling, all of which can send you to a place that you don't recover from.

6x6" watercolours on canvas. A small silhouetted anthro cat floats in a void, surrounded by warm light that's unable to stop the inky blue darkness from encroaching into the frame

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

#46 "A Better Life" There's a recent art installation on Cheese Street in Bristol, in one of the financial areas: a phone box, a postbox, and some lamps twisted and contorted like they were made of rubber. I visited it last Saturday morning when I had some free time, and found it desolate.

6x6" acrylics on canvas. 2 black lampposts, one tied around the other in a way reminiscent of an embrace, stand in the middle of a public park, surrounded by grass and trees, and with a dozen people around either observing it or socialising. A cityscape is in the background beyond the edge of the park.

The lampposts are one of 4 pieces being exhibited on Cheese Street in Bristol

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

#45 "New Life" I got a lot of new paints and art tools for Christmas (new hobbies make for easy gifts, plus with multiple artists in the family, they knew what they were doing). One of said gifts was a watercolours travel set and uhh, I might prefer this to acrylics. Maybe I picked the wrong medium.

6x6" watercolours on canvas. A partially dead tree, perhaps damaged by a storm, grows on a grassy bank by the shore. Sooner branches are sprouting leaves, while others have birds resting on them. In the background is a calm sea and a blue sky with some fluffy white clouds

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

#44 "Oak" Something about painting trees is very satisfying, dragging a brush upward and letting the paint form itself. I got a bunch of new stuff at Christmas (paints, brushes, easel etc) so I used those to do a study of an oak tree where my parents walk

6x6" acrylics on canvas. An oak tree in the foreground stretches up and outward, on the floor are leaves and bushes, in the background birch trees

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

#43 "In Memorium" In the last D&D session, my longest-running character, Siross the lv8 minotaur forget cleric, died when the party were ambushed by giant mimics. He had been lacking a bit of purpose for a while, but as excited I was to bring in his replacement, it's still sad letting him go

6x6" acrylics on canvas. A portrait of Siross, a Minotaur forge cleric, in full plate armour and a furred cloak, painted in greyscale

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

#42 "Galaxy" Inspired by, and using, my favourite nail polish combinations, which comprise a blue or purple base colour with a glitter layer on top, affectionately referred to as "galaxy nails". Enormously busy this week so the patterns were freewheeled

6x6" acrylics and nail polish on canvas. Dark blue and purple background with swirling streaks and dots of blue and purple glitter, with 4 red dots too. The shapes are abstract and so not depict anything in particular

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

#40 "Desaturation" Acrylics I had greater ambitions for this one, but after so much travel disruption from Storm Darragh I had limited time. Despite starting to learn colour theory a few months back, a lot of my pieces have kept the same vibrant pigments, so I wanted to do something much gloomier

6x6" acrylics on canvas. A desaturated rainbow arcs in front of grey clouds

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

#39 "Wake" Struggled the last few weeks as I've fallen off the painting wagon. I've felt less inspired & motivated, and more pressured by the work I'll need to do in order to get as good as I'd like. This week I needed to revert to the simpler pleasures: smearing lots of paint, and bisexual colours

6x6" acrylics on canvas. A white and grey boat moves through a bisexual-coloured sea (blue, pink, purple), creating a wake behind it that is physically carved into the paint

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

#38 "Friends" I was at a convention for the weekend. Met a bunch of friends, new and old, and had a great time. I love the people around me. This week's piece is by them and for them, all gifting their own little contributions to my project.

6x6" acrylics and biro on canvas. 15 doodles by different artists/contributors (tup, sleepy, Jasper, Vix, puff, mammoth, pop, Laika, RJ, coda, kilo, randomlab, Blizzy, cherry, rutan)

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

#37 "Anxiety" Computer troubles this week. After an update, it would freeze on the loading screen. I'm not great with computers, I didn't panic initially. But as I tried each solution, I'd see this same frozen screen & the hurt grew, knowing I may have to risk losing everything to fix this

6x6” acrylics on canvas. Jet black void with the Windows loading animation (5 balls moving in a circular motion) frozen in mid-movement

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

#37 "Hanging On" CW: blood It's not sudden: for LGBTQ people, there was a noticeable downturn in public opinion around 2015-2016, and I imagine many other minorities would argue it's not been getting "better" for even longer. Now the worst person has been elected, and though that won't directly(1/2)

6x6" canvas. 2 hands have gripped adjacent edges of the canvas and left bloody imprints in red. This is my real actual blood that was smeared onto my hands

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 04/11/2024

#36 "Folds" Been thinking more about my geology degree lately. Finished it a decade ago, sadly never made much use of it after though. This was from a field trip to iirc Bude, where down at the coast there is limestone and shale interbedded, and folded spectacularly in these zigzags.

6x6" acrylics on canvas. Bude (I think?) coastline, cliffs/outcrops of interbedded shale and limestone folded into zigzags, with some grass/moss growing in places.

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 28/10/2024

#35 "Autumn" October has been a little erratic. Despite a couple of frosts it's been overall fairly warm, and it's taken a while for plants to catch on. My badly-overgrown hedge is still in the first stages, grading from green leaves to beautiful red-magenta, often on the same branch

6x6" acrylics on canvas. Numerous branches of leaves burst in all directions from a hedge, grading from green in colour, through yellow, to magenta-red

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 21/10/2024

#34 "Vai" Following on from last week, I got to paint again with friends, a larger group this time with a varied mix of styles. During the session I painted this portrait of Vai, a Siamese cat OC I'd designed last week to try and speed up painting furries (compared to my cheetah sona)

6x6" acrylics on canvas. 45° portrait of a fluffy Siamese cat with icy blue eyes, and red-blue gradient background

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 14/10/2024

#33 "Yasmin" Made fairly last-minute plans for friends to come round and paint, like in August, but last second they fell ill & had to cancel. I spent some time painting solo instead, radiator toasting behind me, tunes to set the mood. The vibes of Match In My Pocket by Yasmin Lacey inspired this

6x6" acrylics on canvas. Orange vines wind across a brown gradient background (dark red to dark blue tint). Yellow smaller vines sprout off the orange and have small red flowers on

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 07/10/2024

#32 "Neon" Taken a few stabs at techniques for neon lighting, and this is the best I've managed so far. Done on a whim after 2 hours sleep, bold lines on white with a dry brush over. I need to get gayer with my art (though next time I should probably use references too

6x6" acrylics on canvas. Solid black background with 2 neon outlines of men embracing intimately (pink and purple)

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 30/09/2024

#31 "Andromeda Sunset" Originally I did another piece for my D&D campaign, an illustration of a future scene. Unfortunately, after this week's session, I realised it would be spoilers, and unfair to share with everyone else while asking them not to look, so I quickly cooked up something new

6x6" acrylics on canvas. Centred on the bottom left corner, a radial gradient of yellow to red, with smears of blue green and purple, overlain with 3 bold yellow lines of different thickness. I used my biggest frying pan as guides for those lines

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 23/09/2024

#30 "Night In The Woods" NITW is one of my favourite games of the last few years. When I re-bought it for the collector's edition, it included a set of acrylic dioramas. After watching a video on colour mixing theory, I challenged myself to recreate a setup with Greg and Mae at the Clik Clak Diner

Acrylics on 6x6" canvas. Greg and Mae, from Night In The Woods, chat outside the Clik Clak Diner

Photo of the acrylic standee diorama that was recreated in the painting

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 16/09/2024

#29 "Lakeside" As part of the continuing dive into painting, this week I started learning about palette knife techniques, and tried to make a piece using only them. Managed to practice 5 different techniques (lines, scoring, gradients, scumbling, and impasto, plus the texturing at the mossy shore)

Acrylics on 6x6" canvas. A lakeside is depicted, with mossy vegetation, a boulder, and bulrushes in the foreground, with the lake behind grading in colour from pale to dark blue

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 09/09/2024

#28 "Cathedral" "There are cathedrals everywhere for those with the eyes to see" has been stuck in my mind this week. To me it has a dual meaning: that there is beauty and wonder everywhere if you look hard enough; that the world is terrifyingly complex if you stop and think about it for too long.

Acrylics on 6x6" canvas of a nonspecific cathedral building with a swirly background. Initially I had just planned to do a textual experiment this week, using an evolving partially-mixed palette reminiscent of peacock feathers. Keeping that palette accidentally made this feel very ethereal.

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 02/09/2024

#27 "Rainbow Dash" Not everyone knows this, but I started making art over a decade ago by drawing ponies, and I got reasonably OK at it over 3 years, before dropping it when I lost interest in the show. The skills I picked up then are the foundation of my digital art over a decade later

6x6" acrylics on canvas. Rainbow Dash (from My little pony: friendship is magic) is depicted looking happy, on a backdrop of clouds and blue sky. This piece was done using a new "professional" grade set of paints, which mostly resulted in richer pigments and better colour overall

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 26/08/2024

#26 "Kindness" I can't shake the feelings that contributed to #25, the enormity of what's to learn, and the pressure of feeling I need to start actively developing my skills. Need to remind myself to be kind and make ample room for enjoyment, otherwise I'll choke myself with the drive to be "good"

6x6" canvas painted in acrylics. A silhouette of a cat boy floats in a pink void, with 6 swoops of pink moving towards it

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 19/08/2024

#25 "Roiling" For all I learnt last week, one thing that also came into focus was the enormity of what's still left to learn. The freedom and naivety I came into this project with felt like dipping a toe into a pool. Half a year on I want to push out to sea and develop, but I barely know how to row

6" canvas, acrylics with sealant mixed into the white. Crashing waves (with texture painted into the foamy crests) roll over blue-green water

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 12/08/2024

#24 "Melted cheese man" This Sunday I spent a day painting with a friend, something I'd not experienced before. During this session I became obsessed with the idea of puncturing profundity, trying to skewer my own ego when I acted like every thought I had was revelatory.

Acrylics on 6" canvas. Large amounts of yellow paint have been slopped on top of a previous idea that's resulted in a texture reminiscent of melted American cheese. Details of a broad shouldered man have been picked out in blue afterwards, holding a shepherd's crook that takes form from the yellow slop

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 05/08/2024

#23 "Ragwort" Ragwort, and the cinnabar moth caterpillars that eat it, are nostalgic to me, cos I associate them with going on summer holidays to my family's beach house as a kid. So I was happy to see the plant growing in my garden this year and doubly so when in the past weeks they've been swarmed

6" canvas painted in acrylics. Depicted is a single stem of ragwort, leaning over to the side, with the flowers bent back towards the sun. It's leaning because the plants grew too big during the wet spring and now they're collapsing under their own weight. Multiple cinnabar moth caterpillars are on the plant.

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 29/07/2024

#22 "Mandala" In my living room I have a large mandala canvas, left by the previous owner, made largely of dots and bumps. It's a great thing to stare at and space out to while on shrooms (again, if family/work read this: hypothetically). I also wanted to revisit the olfactory angle after #9 Herbs

6" canvas with "painted" dots and lines in a 4 way symmetrical pattern. The following spices were mixed with water to use as pigments: garlic granules, turmeric, paprika, chilli powder

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 22/07/2024

#21 "The Point of No Return" "Off the starboard, you see a shimmering wall that stretches impossibly high up into the sky, and beyond. Streaks of kaleidoscopic light flicker in and out, and the sea and sky beyond are tinted a warm but ominous shade of pink" A depiction of a scene in my D&D game

6x6" canvas, painted in acrylics and with a sheet of cling film stretching across the top 80% of the canvas. Depicted is a slightly choppy sea, with streaks of coloured light on and under the cling film, and the clouds in the sky shaded pink

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 15/07/2024

#20 "Mystery Box" I don't know what this is. I'd been trying to find a use for all these canvas keys that kept piling up, as well as the gold paint I'd bought for a different project, and for some reason this arrangement compelled me. Maybe it means something I don't yet understand...

6x6" canvas. The background is space, the black is rollered-on wall paint and the stars are acrylics. In the centre is a gold-painted cube made out of canvas keys glued down. In the centre of the cube are 2 diamond holes filled with translucent green resin

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 08/07/2024

#19 "Trans Politics" After 14 long years, the blue of the Tories has been washed away by the red of Labour. A party happy to pander to transphobic culture war bullshit has been kicked out, and in its place an ostensibly more progressive establishment (1/2)

15cm square canvas painted in acrylics. Stylised to look like the trans pride flag (horizontal stripes of blue pink white pink blue) but the blue is the Conservative party blue and the pink is replaced with Labour red

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

#18 "Demon" A creature dwells in the darkness. Even when it seems far away, its long reach can catch you unawares. And then you're in its grip, the once-sharp pain of its claws dulled as they sink back into the familiar scars, almost comforting. You'll escape eventually, you always do. Surely...

5"X5" canvas of a humanoid figure with sharp teeth and claws, and elongated limbs, painted in black. Black ink was then dripped all over, giving it a smoky background and an unintentional sheen to the paint

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 24/06/2024

#17 "Wildflowers" I have a small wildflower garden at home. Last year, the first time in bloom, it was full of poppies cornflowers and cow parsley, giving a real variety of colours. This year it's almost completely changed, with red campion, herb Robert, and foxgloves making it overwhelmingly pink.

A fully painted 5x5 canvas of my wildflower garden. The left side depicts last year's bloom, with poppies cornflowers and cow parsley. The right side depicts this year's bloom, with red campion and foxgloves

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 17/06/2024

#16 "Sunset" After how pleased I was with #14, I wanted to do another piece with a gentle gradient. It's a little cliché, but I love sunsets, and how dramatically they change the sky. Been a while since I've watched one. Also after 4 months I learnt that you're supposed to mix water with acrylics

Acrylic paint on canvas. An orange to red gradient sky, with faint clouds and a flock of 12 bless silhouetted in flight

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 10/06/2024

#15 "Flirty" Left a lipstick kiss on the canvas this week in recognition of all the romantic flings, part present and future, that have lit up my life~ Except that's not quite right. I went back over the kiss to fill in any patches and bring out the colour more.

A lipstick kiss on a white canvas. The kiss print has been touched up afterwards to even out the colour and fill in any patches, ultimately bringing it up to an impossible standard

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 03/06/2024

#14 "Underwater" I had a few ideas relating to an underwater theme (including using the silicone sealant from #1 to make jellyfish) but settled on these bubbles. I'm very happy with the blending of the sea colour

Acrylic paint on canvas depicting deepening water with bubbles rising up through. The larger bubbles are coated in nail top coat to make them shine

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 27/05/2024

#13 "Zoom" There's so much to do at a big convention, sometimes I feel like I'm zipping between conversations like lightning, but then other times I feel guilty because there's SO much to do but I feel like I've done nothing

Small white canvas with acrylic paints, depicting a cheetah with purple eyes side-on, the paint dragged to the side as if moving very quickly

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 20/05/2024

#12 "Masking" It's not a crippling lament, but sometimes I wish I could be more open about presenting more feminine or androgynous. I largely avoid it outside of hanging with other queers, cos it's just easier to avoid even the polite-but-confused comments, let alone any abuse

Square white canvas with a smiley face cut out of it. Behind is a sheet of white paper with blue, pink, purple, and black ink droplets (the colours of the genderfluid flag)

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 13/05/2024

#11 "Blender" After weeks of saying I'm starting to learn Blender (3D modelling program), I've finally actually started. The tutorial I'm using has me model several doughnuts in a kitchen scene, and last night I finally finished it. Now to leave my PC on for a geological era while it renders...

Acrylic painting on square white canvas, 2 ring doughnuts with pink icing, one with long sprinkles and one in the background with dotted sprinkles

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 06/05/2024

#10 "Gateways" When I started sketching this, the idea was to do it freehand and have the portal-like effect slowly warp from the accumulation of small mistakes. Turns out I've become a little too competent

Acrylic painting on a 5"x5" canvas, a doorway in a black void that changes colour as it goes deeper inside, in a psychidelic manner

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 29/04/2024

#9 "Herbs" One of the themes I like to play with in this project is having some factor that can't transmit through an image alone. Boiling down some herbs into a dye, I had hoped for an olfactory aspect to this piece. Sadly, smell is entirely absent from what might as well have been tea-stained.

Depictions of sage, rosemary, and oregano on a square white canvas, made out of dyes that were the result of boiling leaves of the respective herbs

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 22/04/2024

#8 "A Waste Of Time" In the past weeks I've started planning to: learn modelling in blender; make music with both a cover & an original piece; a fandub of a friend's comic; start writing text-based games; work on an art trade piece. All these creative whims & yet not a single idea for this project

A square canvas painted entirely in white acrylic paint

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 15/04/2024

#7 "3D" Wanted to see the capabilities of printer resin if they were "painted". Mixed results, including the first catastrophe of the project: shaking the grey resin, I hadn't realised the cap wasn't secure and it spilled all over the canvas & surrounding area (there's still some stuck to my window)

Grey, blue, and red 3d printer resin on a white canvas. The right half of the canvas is slightly grey and dirty due to spilling and subsequent cleaning up of the grey resin

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 08/04/2024

#6 "Spiral" Spiralling has seemed to be the theme of this week, both downward and upward. They're not neverending though, despite how they look.

A dark and light blue twinned spiral, painted onto canvas, with a small black stick man drawn at the centre

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 01/04/2024

#5 "Beholder" I've tried eye makeup several times, but most of the time I end up regretting it. Even if it looks ok in the mirror, I'll see my reflection or photos later and think "God I hate how that looks" on a deep instinctual level. Maybe I just need to practice more

A pencil sketch of my eye, coloured using eye shadow, with the lashes drawn with eyeliner, and the eyebrow done with mascara

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 25/03/2024

#4 "Acid" Wanted to recreate the feeling and visual vibrancy of being on acid (if my parents/work are reading this, it's just based on media). Splorted a load of paints onto the canvas and dragged a paintbrush end through it from the centre. I hadn't anticipated the view from the other side

Acrylic paints on a canvas, first laid out in roughly concentric blobs, and then had the end tip of a paintbrush dragged through, in order to mix the colours and create a spiky shimmer effect

View from the other side of the canvas, where the excess paint from the front now occludes light, and the visible streaks are where the brush tip scraped through

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I Won't Be Generated @iwontbegenerated.bsky.social · 18/03/2024

#3 "Creation" One thing I didn't expect when I made #1 was how satisfying painting could feel physically. So this week I just decided to take brush to canvas and go in whatever direction felt right. Sometimes the joy of creation itself is enough

Acrylic paint on a 15x15cm canvas depicting blobs of red, yellow, and purple with some shine highlights

The same piece at an angle to show that the blobs wrap around the side of the canvas

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