Dynamic Brushes: Extending Manual Drawing Practices with Artist-Centric Programming Tools

Procedural art, or art made with programming, suggests opportunities to extend traditional arts; however, this potential is limited by programming tools that conflict with manual practices. We hypothesize that by developing programming environments that align with how manual artists work, we can build procedural systems that enhance, rather than displace, manual art. We present Dynamic Brushes, a programming environment centered around manual drawing. Dynamic Brushes enables the creation of ad-hoc drawing tools that transform stylus inputs to procedural patterns. Applications range from transforming individual strokes to behaviors that draw multiple strokes simultaneously, respond to temporal events, and leverage external data.