A. Aronsson's WeBOLLog

Note: If you ended up on this page while looking for my actual art, go here!

Index: History, Philosophy, Technology

History

The Beginning

My first real impossible drawing, which I remember vividly, was made after noticing an impossible triangle, or tribar, in a children’s magical and mysteries book at the local book store around 1995.

Why I remember it so well is because I tried to draw it at home after seeing it just once, but it was too hard a challenge for me to actually succeed. I ended up going back to the book store with my paper and a pencil to correct and complete the drawing according to the art in the book.

I had been unable to successfully connect all the lines, it just made no sense to draw something that was intentionally wrong. For me, it was a mental barrier that was broken.

Computer Graphics

Around 1996-1997 when my family got a new PC including some neat software I began drawing impossible figures on the computer in a vector application called Designer. With much delight over the incredibly thin and straight lines it was possible to produce I frequently printed my collection to show friends and family.

It did not take long until I had filled an entire sheet with figures and thought to myself that I had reached a level of complexity in the figures that made them incomprehensible, uninteresting and even mentally painful to look at.

After that it was seldom that I created any impossible art, but it always sparked my interest when I came across graphical illusions. Many other things took my attention as I grew up, it was mostly enough just trying to survive being a teenager.

My most complex piece drawn with parallel projection was sketched out and promptly put on ice in 2004, but finished after a month of intensive work in the first half of 2006. It is available right here on this very blog, with the story behind it as well.

Mind Expansion

Later the same year, 2006, I got to think of what unique abilities I have that would be worth developing. Unsurprisingly creating illusions was what came to mind. I started to read up on what other artists there were that are or have been active creating impossible artwork.

Earlier in my life I went by the principle that I should not limit my imagination with the work of others, so that I could be certain that what I was making really came from my own mind. But at this time I broke with my old philosophies and reasoned that if you take in what has taken other people lifetimes to imagine, it should be possible to come up with creations it would take a single man several lifetimes to achieve.

Since then I have bought a number of books. One I especially liked was Masters of Deception by Al Seckel (ISBN: 140275101X) which takes up a great number of artists with different styles, as well as offering interviews and videos online! It inadvertently gave me names to go on for more information.

I am myself concentrated on impossible figures; that is physical objects that can only exist on a flat surface. But this does not stop me from greatly enjoying other illusions, and I found Incredible Visual Illusions, also by Al Seckel (ISBN10: 078582056, ISBN13: 9780785820567) very fascinating! I have also gotten my hands on books with art by single artists, but they are often much faster to get through as they follow a single line of thought, therefore they make less of an imprint on my memory.

New Beginning

In the last quarter of 2006 I had decided it was time to seriously pick up drawing my own impossible figures again. As I still thought I had exhausted the challenges with parallel projection drawings, especially after finishing my last piece, I immediately decided that I would be making the figures in three point perspective. A distinctly harder challenge than to draw figures in parallel projection.

I had begun to look for solutions to create perspective art earlier, out of fascination of 3D graphics, before I had actually made a decision to do pursue it seriously. By the time I finally had decided on a work process I had evaluated many different applications, addons and macros for a couple of months. I finished drawing my first perspective figure in January 2007.

Philosophy

Construction Principles

From the very beginning in the 90′s I have had a few very strict design guidelines for my own creation of impossible figures. Basically I drew them in ways so that you could clearly see how they were constructed, but still impossible. It has not been until later that I realized what kind of rules I had set up for myself.

There are three main philosophies. The first rule is that lines from different surfaces should not be joined at the ends if they are not supposed to be. To me this makes the figure confusing and unclear. Note the example below where several surfaces end up with an intersecting point and lines that go into each other. It ends up looking more like a geometrical shape than a representation of a solid object. The solution is to change the shape ever so slightly to separate those points.

The second rule is a variation of the first, but it is more subtle and more of a design choice. If the object is constructed in a way so that the lines make it look like many separate objects, even if it is not, I modify it so the surfaces overlap like the bricks in a brick wall. I think this makes it more apparent that it is a single object and not parts floating in space.

The third rule is about not using shortcuts to making things impossible. I do my best to keep lines alive, meaning they actually end up somewhere and do not trail off the side of the document or fade away. To me letting a line vanish is a job unfinished.

I go to great lengths to keep these rules, not because I will punish myself otherwise, but because for me it is the only right way to do it. I will not accept the result otherwise. A side effect of this is that I criticize art I see elsewhere by the same principles.

Motivation

Creating these figures makes me feel a bit unique as most impossible figures that are published are created in parallel projection. I still draw that kind of figures, but what challenges my brain and motivates me is to then render them in a perspective view. Every time I have finished a piece I feel a sense of victory and achievement, at least until I get my next idea!

In addition I strive for perfect correctness, no bent lines or untrue perspective to cheat my way to a complete structure, that is the perfectionist in me at work. I go to great lengths to correct small and probably invisible errors. I have discovered errors in year-old figures which I then promptly fix, or else just being aware of the faults would nag at my mind forever.

Why I still make few-colored simple-structured figures is because then they are possible to validate. The lines are perfectly straight so you can with ease trace them to their respective vanishing points; they are not a bumpy rock wall or other design which would have made it less clear. This is a design choice I have to remind myself of as I sometimes think a figure can look a bit bland. Then I try to add surface details which does not confuse the viewer and often enhances the impossible properties.

Technology

Work Process

I start out by sketching the ideas I get on paper. Usually I come up with them when I am not trying to, spontaneous creativity, while riding my bike, vacuuming or other less brain intensive activities. This means I have to remember the concept that popped up in my mind until I get my hands on a pencil and paper. Usually I carry a tiny notebook in my pocket as I use it at work.

In the time between the drawing board and working on the computer I think of what to create in the 3D application, Google Sketchup, what I would need to get a good start when doing the manual perspective work. When I think I have a good idea of the entire process to a finalized figure I start the actual digitizing. Why I use a 3D application at all is because these illusions are very dependent on the camera angle; from which direction you look at the object. I save a lot of time and frustration compared to if I would start with just three perspective points and draw the entire thing from scratch, and then be forced to start over every time it ends up not working. I still end up remaking or entirely scrapping some creations as I deem them (too) impossible to realize. There are some limitations that are hard to break!

From 3D I go to 2D, in Autodesk AutoCAD. I pick out the perspective points retroactively and start adding, adjusting and removing whatever is needed to finish the design. Sometimes it is fairly quick and easy, and sometimes it can take many intensely focused hours. When I have finished the actual figure I add a frame and the background grid before I export it for coloring.

Coloring is usually quite quick. It depends on how many different colors that are needed, how many different surface angles there are and especially if there are gradients. More colors simply adds decisions, more angles increase the number of light and shadow layers and gradients are usually a hassle to get to do what I want. I find Adobe Illustrator to be the tool that does what I want, but I feel it quite lacking in gradient and snapping control.

When done with everything I render the final result as three different versions and post it to the site! Then I move the entire project folder into the right archive. Done!

I have documented this process, or rather steps of it, in video form. Use this link to filter out the progress videos I have posted!

File Naming Convention

I include this here as it helped me lower the amount of confusion during the creative process a great deal. This means I can use more of my effort on actually creating art instead of managing files as well as leaving me with a very nice looking file tree.

Across the three stages on the computer where I make my figures I end up with a lot of source files. At first they were very confusingly named which caused me quite a bit of grief, but I eventually organized my files so they automatically sort in a historical order. The file types I generate are mentioned below, as well as my naming convention.

Red.3D are SketchUp .skp files, Green.2D are AutoCAD .dwg files and Blue.color are Illustrator .ai files. Also, the Gray.export files are in the AutoCAD .dxf format, which I use both when exporting from 3D to 2D as well as from 2D to coloring. The bold numbers are where the editing has occurred, and it is always the last number present in the file name.

• Name_01.3D
• Name_02.3D
• Name_03.3D
• Name_03.export
• Name_03_01.2D
• Name_03_02.2D
• Name_03_02[a].export
• Name_03_02[b].export
• Name_03_02_01.color
• Name_04.3D
• Name_04.export
• Name_04_03.2D
• Name_04_03[a].export
• Name_04_03[b].export
• Name_04_03_02.color

This way even if I make revisions to formats earlier in the process the files will still keep the right order on the disk. The intermediate formats have the same name as their source file which makes the export process almost nonexistent, just click and it is done! When I split the AutoCAD file into layers before opening them in Illustrator I export them with square brackets at the end, which is what I found worked to keep the file order even if more files are added later. At least under Windows.

Now that you know how I name my files you can deduct things from the image file names in the postings, as I keep them intact when publishing them online. The higher the number the more time I have spent at that specific stage of the process, pretty much.