Install

1. Make sure to have git installed. See Git installation instructions
2. Make sure you have uv installed. See uv installation instructions
3. Clone this repository by opening Terminal (Mac/Linux) or PowerShell (Windows) and run:

   git clone --recurse-submodules https://git.rubenvandeven.com/r/2026-kabk-workshop-drawing-gestures.git
   

4. Move into the directory with cd 2026-kabk-workshop-drawing-gestures
5. Run jupyter to browse the different notebooks of the workshop:

   uv run jupyter lab --collaborative
   

Updating

1. Make sure to cd into the 2026-kabk-workshop-drawing-gestures
2. Stop Jupyter (ctrl+c followed by a y)
3. Get the latest version of the code: git pull
4. Make sure the submodules are updated as well: git submodule update
5. Update dependencies: uv sync
6. Now start again with uv run jupyter lab --collaborative

Tricks

Animate a list of shapes. Here, that is conditionals:

import time
output = display('', display_id="anim")
for i, shape in enumerate(conditionals):
    img = shape.as_svg(30, 'red', 3)
    output.update(img)
    time.sleep(.1)

Resources

• Tom Ingold: Lines (2016)
• Alexander Gerner: Diagrammatic thinking
• Showcase of predictive handwriting: Carter et al. Four Experiments in Handwriting with a Neural Network
• In 1963-1965 A. Michael Noll recreated works by Piet Mondriaan's Compositie in lijn and Bridget Riley's painting Currents with computational drawing at Bell labs. Media-N
• Pen plotter works by Vera Molnar: Lettres à ma mère (1981-1990) https://dam.org/museum/artists_ui/artists/molnar-vera/lettres-a-ma-mere/ - Feature on Molnar's work at Artforum
• Remaking Georg Nees' "Schotter"
• Tracing the Line
• Nice overview of the history of pen plotter art (Sher Minn Chong); inluding works of Edward Zajec, Irving John Good, Frieder Nake, Mark Wilson.
• Sunjoo Lee & Ko de Beer, Machine in Flux-Wood

Dataset preparation

• The input images are SVG. Any SVG file can be converted to the required NPZ format by running package_images()
• Every SVG file can contain multiple drawings: a set of paths grouped together is one shape.
  • Thus, the following SVG has two shapes, one with two strokes, the other with a single one:

    <svg><g><path /><path /></g><g><path /></g></svg>
    

• Tracing with Inkscape, when tracing a line drawing make sure to use: Centerline tracing (autotrace)