Skip to content

notes art

explorations in iphone notes

  • Blog
  • About

machine

2024/02/27

February 27, 2024
A vast forest: mountain after mountain of heavy trees. The sky is indigo fading into the clear blue of an early dawn. Hovering above the purple trees is a black helicopter, a red light on the tail and a green light on its underbelly. The helicopter is pointing the brilliant white cone of a spotlight down into the trees below. Someone is looking for something.

2024/02/26

February 26, 2024
A deep, slightly foggy woods at night. Filtering through the trees on the left is an eerie white glow, suggesting a very bright light somewhere nearby. Wandering through the trees are two robots, glaring greenish lights on their heads. Overhead, the branches of the trees interlock. This is a primarily purple and indigo drawing, suggesting a dull, foggy night with little illumination.

2024/02/25

February 25, 2024
Night, deep in the woods. In the sky is a thin crescent of a moon. In the background is a hilly tree line indicating heavy woods. On the left is a windowless concrete warehouse with the number "3" stenciled on the side. On one wall of the building is a large open door, casting an eerie green glow out into the darkness. A robot has just left the building—perhaps without permission—and is walking out into the darkness. The robot's head has a light on it that looks like a headlight, casting a beam forward. The robot's body has several other colored glowing lights. This is a mostly dark blue and indigo drawing, with highlights of white and glowing green.

2024/02/24

February 24, 2024
A large, haphazardly constructed robot, about the size of a two to three-story building, standing in what looks like a large laboratory or warehouse. The robot is mostly black, with tinges of blue, red, and gray. Its head has several brightly colored lights. It is a humanoid combination of a number of complex shapes, wires, and lights. Various wires connect it to the ceiling. To the left of it is a tall tower made of scaffolding. At the top of the scaffolding stands a small figure, inspecting something on the robot's shoulder. The wall behind it is yellow, with what looks like warning signage on the left: indecipherable lettering and a triangular red hazard symbol.

2024/02/21

February 21, 2024
A heavily wooded black skyline, with a small road cutting through it. It's either sunrise or sunset, and the horizon is a blazing red, giving way to heavy slate-gray clouds. Hanging in the sky above the trees is a small dirigible, reflecting the red glow. There is a small, glowing green light on its top tailfin, and a red light on the basket.

2024/02/16

February 16, 2024
A cloudy night. A sleek military aircraft sits on a tarmac. A large building looms behind it, windows glowing green in the fog, antennas with red lights on top. The plane is seen from the front, straight on. A small green light glows on its underside; a bright white light is lit on the left wing. This is a mostly blue drawing: the blue of a cloudy, rainy night.

2024/02/15

February 15, 2024
A desert scene, late afternoon: a golden sky with clouds scattered across it, and a partially concealed sun. A truck is parked in the middle of a barren rise, the driver standing next to it, casting a long shadow. Visible in the distance is the hazy brown shape of a natural rock formation. Flying overhead is a black triangular aircraft seen from the rear, the red glow of the engine visible and a bright green light on the underside.

2024/02/14

February 14, 2024
A high cliff, somewhere in the desert. It's a gray day, the clouds heavy in the sky. Gathered at the edge of the cliff are two people, with a third running towards them. Directly above them, relatively close to the ground, is flying a very futuristic, triangular aircraft. Visible in the background is the blurry outline of another natural formation; a tower of rock. This is a primarily black and gray drawing; the only color is a tiny green light on the underside of the aircraft.

2024/02/12

February 12, 2024
A crimson sky, suggesting sunrise or sunset. Dominating the foreground is a vast radio dish, rendered in black and cement gray, mounted on a heavy industrial base of beams, pipes, and concrete. There is a red light mounted at the top of the dish, and a small green light over the doorway to the installation. In the sky, to the right, in the direction that the telescope is pointed at, is a single bright star.

2024/02/05

February 5, 2024
A cuckoo clock where the pendulum is a wrecking ball. The clock sits at the top of the drawing: a small square clock with Roman numerals displaying around 6:50 and a pointed roof. The wrecking ball has swung the left and is preparing to swing back to the right. At the right of the drawing is a small figure wearing boxing gloves, posed in a boxing stance, preparing to punch the pendulum like a punching bag. These are pale green lines on a black background.

2024/01/25

January 25, 2024
A huge factory with three smokestacks billowing smoke. The factory is heavy, rendered in black and dark purple; it stands against a blazing yellow and orange sky that appears to be on fire. The smoke from the smokestacks is yellow. In one square window, on the right side of the factory, a single silhouette of a person is visible.

2024/01/24

January 24, 2024
A colorful, abstract background of reds, yellows, greens, and blues. In the center is a minimalist sketch of a Macintosh, rendered in a few quick lines: the "Picasso" logo featured on the branding for the first Macintosh. There is a smiling face on the screen, and a rainbow apple with a bite out of it placed to the left of the Macintosh.

2024/01/24

January 24, 2024
A blue background, heavily textured, with brushstrokes of various blues and greens. Placed in the middle is a glowing red, "happy Mac" icon, framed by rough, yellow, white, and neon green brushstrokes.

2024/01/20

January 20, 2024
A tower of rock rises up from the desert floor. It's around dusk; the sky is still blue, but the sun is gone. The only remnant of it is a reddish glow on the right side of the tower, and a pink area on the horizon. A pale pink moon sits high in the sky. To the right of the tower, a futuristic triangular aircraft reminiscent of an F-117 Nighthawk cruises past, its underside reddish in the remaining sunlight.

2024/01/10

January 10, 2024
A simply rendered robot: a small box for the head, a larger box for the body, and two blocky legs with triangular feet. The robot is different shades of red, purple, and black. The face is two large, staring, round eyes and a simple mouth that looks like a tally mark. The head has two curved horns. The robot has one left hand on the end of a curvy, tubelike arm, which it is raising. It also has an electric plug for a tail. Centered on its body is a large television screen—the old-style, round-cornered kind, rendered in blue, phosphorescent, green, and white. There is a blurry figure wearing a suit speaking on the screen. The robot is standing on a yellow background.

2024/01/06

January 6, 2024
A humanoid figure facing to the right. The person, if that's what it is, has no hair; a long straight nose; a small, set mouth; and eyes narrowed to slits. This is not a pleasant face to look at. Especially because the one visible eye has an eerie green glow, as though the figure is not human. The right cheek is covered with small wrinkles and veins. Behind and above the figure are a glow of vertical yellow beams—not sunlight, but something technological, like the transporter "beam" effect from Star Trek.

2024/01/01

January 1, 2024
A gray, nearly black sky, heavy with clouds. The only hint of sunlight is a dull gray light around the horizon. Sitting on a flat, barren landscape are two objects: a barn-like building on the right, and a tall, black rocketship on the left. To the right of the barn is a spindly metal antenna with a red light on top. To the left of the rocket is a metal support structure. There is a glowing green window lit on the body of the rocket. There are two lit windows on the right side of the barn, also.

2023/12/21

December 21, 2023
A view over a vast, mountainous forest: hills covered with heavy woods. The hill closest to the viewer is dark brown, with a small cabin on top of it. There is a light on, and smoke drifting up from the chimney. On the hill beyond it looms a massive dish antenna; something the size of a football field or larger. The sky is heavy with wispy clouds, a weak sun filtering through. The whole scene is a brownish yellow, suggesting a hazy, muggy day. Above it all circles the small form of a hawk or eagle.

2023/12/16

December 16, 2023
A small hill on which is built a chaotically complex steel tower. It looks like a short radio mast, with many beams and crossbeams. At the top of the tower is a compact dish antenna. Extending off the left side of the tower is a network of horizontal beams that are supporting a small metal chamber with a door and a round portal window, in which is visible a dim figure. The effect is that of someone living in a treehouse made from a safe and an erector set. Below the chamber is a black mailbox. The sky has a few wispy suggestions of clouds. The drawing is black linework on a light gray background, with white used for the clouds and a few highlights.

2023/12/13

December 13, 2023
A giant, furry red creature with two pointy ears and round, shiny, insect-like eyes pilots a white two-wheeled vehicle. The vehicle looks like a bicycle, but instead of a seat and pedals, it has a tiny basket that looks like the lower half of an egg. There is no obvious engine or propulsion system. The creature is, impossibly, squeezed into the basket. A creature this size would presumably have very large legs, but no legs are visible. The overall effect is of a giant red bear riding a cartoonishly tiny bicycle. The background of the drawing is black.

2023/12/02

December 2, 2023
A tall, blocky object that looks like a spaceship or a machine built for traveling. The object is roughly the size and shape of a small tenement building. It has angular, irregular sides, and an overall alien shape and appearance. It has two mechanical legs that keep it upright. On the top and on the lower left side are placed two glowing red lights. The object has two glowing green slots in the top left and a glowing green window in the top right. White steam is pouring out of the object from the middle of the lower left. On the lower right of the object, a hatchway is opened, revealing internals. Someone is standing on a platform, looking into the hatchway and making repairs. The background is blue; the drawing is black; the lights and windows have white highlights, and are red and neon green.

2023/11/18

November 18, 2023
An intricate pattern of geometric shapes, lines, and textures that form a rough, robotic face. It looks like a blueprint for a mask or a microchip. The drawing is mostly white ink on a medium-blue background, with some shapes drawn in yellow, green, and a translucent highlighter pink.

2023/11/17

November 17, 2023
A large figure with two small legs, no arms, a bulky upper body, and a head that looks like a space helmet with horns. Where the face would be is a round glass window with nothing visible through it. On the creature's chest is a lightning-bolt symbol. Extending down from the upper side of the creature's chest is a cable attached to a small rectangular box, making it look like the creature is recharging or refueling. The drawing is bright leaf-green ink on a dark brown background.

2023/10/08

October 8, 2023
A giant head with two legs and no arms. The head looks like that of a robot: no hair, an oddly machinelike mouth, and a large eyesocket, which seems to be a computer screen displaying lines of glowing green text.

2023/09/27

September 27, 2023
A weird, rough, lopsided fragment of something that looks like it was once machinery. In the top left corner are a set of vertical slots that resemble a vent; there are boltholes in the lower left and right. Towards the upper-left center is a large, ragged hole. In it, as though it's a window, hangs a ceiling lamp casting a cone of white light, and a figure hunched in the lower-left corner of the hole, as though the figure is sitting desolately on the floor.

2023/09/21

September 21, 2023
A furry creature with a large head, an empty eyesocket, and a giant, toothy mouth pushes a small cart on which is placed a tall, thin tank that looks kind of like a fire extinguisher or something containing a compressed gas. Protruding from the creature's back are several pipes and tubes of varying size.

2023/08/10

August 10, 2023
A ludicrous, vaguely tree-shaped structure: a narrow, trunklike base supporting a large, misshapen object with circular crimson windows scattered about it. This is a building, if a building looked somewhere between an alien machine part and an asteroid. Dangling and protruding from various points on the structure are vinelike plants and twigs. In the one rectangular window on this thing stands the shadowy silhouette of a person. This building is planted on a grassy hill.

2023/08/03

August 3, 2023
A face in profile. The face is basically a head with two legs; there's no body to speak of. The face has odd, precise contours framing the open mouth and eye, as though it's carved from wood. The eye is a rectangular hole with rounded edges. In other circumstances, it might suggest a mask, but in this case, there is another, smaller figure—also viewed in profile—visible through the eyehole. That, and the shape of the eye, gives the sense of someone viewed through a vehicle's window, like the head is a vehicle and someone is driving it.

2023/08/02

August 2, 2023
A humanoid head in profile, wearing a miner's helmet. The head looks as if it is carved from wood or metal: craggy, angular, with harsh lines and overlapping shapes. The expression is somber. The light on the helmet is illuminated, casting a beam forwards. The figure's eye is illuminated, glowing white like the helmet light.

2023/07/28

July 28, 2023
A tall, rocky cliff with sparse trees on top. Behind it, faded as though it's in the far background, is a mountain. In the sky, approaching, is a helicopter. Further down the cliff stands a figure, as if it is waiting for the helicopter. The figure appears to be wearing a robe and is holding a staff in its hand.

2023/07/24

July 24, 2023
A strange, mask-like object. It has an arrangement of details that suggest a face, but a weird and mechanical one: a perfectly round eye in the top right, a semicircular indentation in the middle left, a nose that looks more like a metal spike or machine part. The right side of the face has several carved, curving indentations, like a wooden mask. There are a few tendrils of something hanging off the bottom of the mask, suggesting attempts at facial hair.

2023/07/23

July 23, 2023
A faceless white figure sits in front of a glowing computer terminal. The terminal sits on a desk, which is inset into a vast, bulky structure that dominates most of the drawing, and appears to be made of flimsy cardboard or metal. The structure is a huge, featureless thing that, if it was more detailed, might be furniture or a machine. As it is, it's not clear at all what this thing is. It looms over both the computer and the person sitting in front of it, serving no obvious purpose. On the wall next to the person hangs an analog clock.

Posts navigation

Older posts
Newer posts
  • Mastodon
  • Instagram
  • Glass
  • Pixelfed
  • Link
  • RSS Feed

    All work © Chris Silverman