Alchemy is an open drawing project aimed at exploring how we can sketch, draw, and create on computers in new ways. Alchemy isn’t software for creating finished artwork, but rather a sketching environment that focuses on the absolute initial stage of the creation process. Experimental in nature, Alchemy lets you brainstorm visually to explore an expanded range of ideas and possibilities in a serendipitous way.

For a quick look at Alchemy in the ‘flesh’, check out the video of Andrew Jones demoing Alchemy in Shanghai – also on YouTube . Along with developing the software itself, the project aims to become involved hands on in workshops, talks, and exercises focused on experimental drawing.

Alchemy has been featured in the May 2010 issue of German design magazine, ‘Page’.

A big thank you to Bianca Beuttel for compiling the article, and to Andrew Jones and Chris Waller for contributing artwork.

Posted Saturday, May 8th, 2010

Today we announce the release of Alchemy version 008, a Beta release. Nearly two years on from the first release, the community of users has grown significantly and we believe Alchemy is reliable enough to be labelled ‘Beta’ quality. As a result we are finally opening up the website for everyone to download and try it out.

This release has a number of new modules, improvements, and bug fixes, but perhaps the most important thing is we are also opening up the development of Alchemy for everyone to create their own modules. If you know a little bit of Java or even some Javascript, Actionscript, or Processing, creating an Alchemy module is a simple process outlined in this tutorial. We want Alchemy to be software by artists for artists. How to contribute.

Finally we would like to say a special thank you to Steren Giannini and James Alliban for their code contributions to this release.

Posted Thursday, January 7th, 2010