PLOTFLOW is an independent studio. It makes machine-drawn ink drawings: studies of Universal-Century machines, and original commissioned designs. They are drawn with a pen plotter, a machine that holds a pen and draws, one stroke at a time, following a prepared program. Every mark on every sheet was made by a pen.
Each drawing begins as vector line work, rebuilt from reference path by path and compiled to a stroke program. An AxiDraw executes the program with a Staedtler Triplus 0.3 mm pigment fineliner on Strathmore 300 Bristol. A typical sheet takes twenty to thirty minutes of continuous drawing and ten to thirty metres of ink.
Ink flow depends on temperature, humidity, and feed rate, so no two sheets are identical, even from the same path data. The variation is not corrected. It is the record of a particular machine drawing a particular sheet on a particular day.
The Universal-Century studies are fan works and are not sold. Commissioned pieces are original designs, drawn once for one owner, then inspected, signed, and numbered by hand.