Free Online Painting Tool Helps New Media Artists Expand Their Practice

Miley by Kim Asendorf

Prolific Berlin-based new media artist and curator Kim Asendorf is on a constant mission to test and subvert the boundaries of net art. Asendorf is known in many circles as the co-founder of the Fach & Asendorf Gallery, one of the very first web-only art galleries, whose shows are dedicated to the philosophy of ‘electricity, bits, brains, glitch and curiosity’. Asendorf’s work often mixes innovation and fun in equal measure, and this spirit shines through in this latest project WendyPaint. WendyPaint is a free online art creation tool that is like a tweaked, new media-centric version of MS paint. Users move repeating Favicon-like pattern squares to create vibrant, abstract, and unique net art. Like any tool, the limits of the program are defined by the imagination of the artist, and it's interesting to see how some people have manipulated and stretched those limits to create the unexpected. Below, Asendorf was kind enough to answer some questions about his wild creation.

Mountain Town by Ball2000, created in Wendy Paint.

The Creators Project: What inspired you to make WendyPaint?
The initial inspiration was the Cementimental Noise Book that I came across around 4 years ago. I was thinking about a way to create similar Pixel-based abstract art, and came up with the idea to create a Pixel Pattern Painter. I wanted to create icons in the way Tiny Icon Factory does, and use these icons as brushes to draw or paint on another canvas. My first attempt was a Mac App called Bitmap Painter, but I never finished it. 2 years ago I started a second attempt in Java Script. I felt much more comfortable to have it all in the browser. I developed a database structure to store and handle all the patterns and paintings so that I was able to add a registry and login to make it a public service. Since August 2012 WendyPaint was online in an alpha version with a very limited (and invited user) community, but it lost my focus completely for another year. Just a month ago I fixed the last bugs and made it public.

Why is it called WendyPaint?
WendyPaint is named after my old and good friend Philipp Wendelin Teister. He used the pseudonym Wendy Digital Riot a couple of years ago, and I am really into how Wendy appears to be a nickname for the web. It also carries the cuteness of pattern-based painting.

Is there a philosophy behind it?
Actually there is no fundamental philosophy behind WendyPaint, it's just an experiment in digital painting. It's online and free to use.

pppppppppppppppp by cd

How does it relate to your other art?
Digital aesthetics has always been the essence in my work, and I am always on the look out for new styles. WendyPaint is not just a tool, it's a new style.

How have people reacted to it?
I think WendyPaint is faraway from a 1-Click art generator. It was made for net art nerds who love to spend time with tiny tools like this. Most people love it, why shouldn't they?

The new media artist Tom Moody has demanded that I remove the real name entry field and have it be Open Source. But for me it's very important to follow the output myself, and offer the opportunity to publish stuff on the internet directly via the WendyPaint website. Users have to give their real name to take at least a little responsibility for their releases. By the way, you can enter any name you want as a real name and WendyPaint will recognize it as valid, like every other service out there. I love to have my own account on the website, my image stream and my own pattern sets. A private space in public. The opportunity to have your own page and to share pattern sets with other users is important for the evolution of WendyPaint. Anonymous users means chaos. Long story short: I made it just for my own pleasure. Actually there are about 500 registered users and 600 paintings in the database, so it's very underground.

Berlin1 by Kim Asendorf

Has anyone made anything with it that has surprised you?
There are so many surprisingly good and graphically interesting stuff in the stream that I only can say YES!

Will there be a 2.0 version?
Yes, I hope so. Actually I would say the current version isn't even version 1.0. I have many different ideas to improve and extend WendyPaint, but I am not sure yet how to go further, some ideas might work against its brilliant aesthetics.

What else do you have planned for 2014?
Net art is like a TV series, you shouldn't tell anything about the next season!

Long Walks On The Beach by Adam Black

For more info you can visit WendyPaint's website.