// jeremy couillard \\

Just Bought Some Awesome Sneakers On the Internet 30″x22″ Acrylic on paper

Messing around with new Golden mediums…

Musical Chairs, Acrylic and electrical components on canvas over panel, 12″x12″, 2010

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This is a big improvement from my last musical painting. I used the force sensitive resistors to change the tones and their durations.  If you are curious, here is the Arduino code.

I found a toy keyboard in the trash…it was wet but I was able to salvage the speaker and on/off switch. I drilled some little holes on the side so the sound wouldn’t be as muffled.

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Trying cheaper ways to make noise paintings. I hooked up a 555 timer instead of using an entire Arduino. This is the first small step…it’s an astable vibration circuit and for the second resistor I put in a force sensitive resistor.

A Love Letter to My Generation #01 and #02, Acrylic on paper 7″x5″, 2010

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Roberto Bolaño is a hugely inspirational writer to me and in a speech he gave once he said that

“…to a great extent everything that I have ever written is a love letter or a letter of farewell to my own generation…”

That really resonated with me as a lot of my paintings are about a sort of nostalgic space. These Nintendo controllers are nostalgic objects. They are studies for hopefully eventually larger plastic sculptures.

This is a project I’ve been working on for awhile while trying to learn programming and basic electronics. It’s an interactive painting that lights up and makes sounds.

Ceci c’est un piano 12″x12″x3.5″ Acrylic and electrical components on canvas over panel, 2010

I made a 3.5″ deep box and stretched canvas over it. I drilled holes through the painting to insert three tri-color LEDs and a potentiometer which changes the tones of the keys. In between the canvas and the box are three force sensitive resistors which are prefect because they’re paper thin.

The box is full of wires. It’s a little sloppy so hopefully for the next one I’ll learn how to clean up the wire situation. The speaker is also a bit small and hanging from a wire. I used an Arduino Duemilanova which is drilled to the left and powered with a 9V battery so it hangs on the wall and you don’t need to plug it in or anything. I made a perf board which is drilled to the right.

Here it is in action: (I will probably make a better video later…it’s hard to steady one hand and play a “piano” with my other hand.

Here is the arduino code.

If you’re interested in the schematics or anything let me know and maybe I’ll post something up. But mostly I just used the three key keyboard tutorial on the Arduino page. I don’t really know what I’m doing so if you have any input on how to improve this it’s appreciated.

Thinking About Technology 18″x24″ Acrylic on Papyrus

My father in law brought me back some papyrus from Cairo. It’s pretty hard to paint on in my style so I painted some pixels and color on it.

Still learning arduino and processing. The idea here is to one day put those sensors and speakers that make the noise behind a painting to make it musical when it’s touched. The beats are just from the internet and the noise is coming out of that little speaker. Here is the Arduino code and Here is the Processing code if you’re curious. A lot of this was taken from this tutorial.

Trying to learn how to use an Arduino microprocessor.  Just slapped a bunch of LEDs on a breadboard, two in that guy’s eyes and a piezo in his mouth. Here is the code if you’re curious.

These are some paintings I did for Bright Rain Gallery in Albuquerque. They are 8.5″x11″, acrylic and post-it notes on paper.

Still messing around with Processing. I can’t really put examples right in the blog but here it is in a pop out window:::::

This is my analysis of Picasso’s analysis of Velazquez’s Las Meninas.

I’ve been messing with Processing. Can’t seem to fit anything super complicated in a blog post yet, though. Drag the mouse over the orange area and make your own little abstraction.

Panic Schematic 48″x48″ canvas over panel.

Mostly I did this in acrylic. I cut up some post it notes to get the designs in the monitors. The texture in the background is a bunch of tape with a blue tinted gel medium slathered all over it. I also used oil glazes for the shadows. The image in the back is from google maps…it’s of a track course/football field in the neighborhood where I grew up.

here is some source material and inspirational images from the last few months:

Show at micro museum. Up till April.

Suuuuper old painting in my niece Michaela’s room in England.

Impossible Mountain 12″x12″ acrylic on wood,  2009

Impossible Buttons 12″x12″ acrylic on wood

These paintings were inspired by this video I found on this blog somehow. One day I would like to figure out how to make videos like this…in the meantime I’ll settle for making paintings.

An Unfortunately Impossible Machine 48″x48″ acrylic and tape on canvas over panel

I made this painting at the same time as I built a web page: http://www.ithappenedhere.org . A lot of the painting is about memory and our relationship with it. The google maps I painted are 6 different places I’ve lived. They are also marked up on that webpage.

Painting inspired by the music of Makoto Tomozawa.

COCKPITS!

Cockpit #2 Graphite, guache and acrylic on paper 20″x25

Cockpit #3 Graphite, guache and acrylic on paper 20″x25

Cockpit #1 Graphite, guache and acrylic on paper 20″x25