How to Make a Digital Spyrograph

Remember Spyrograph? When you spent hours with color pens and white paper to make geometric masterpieces to please your parents and friends? Now you can create them instantly with GIMP. Although I haven’t really decided yet whether I like this or not, because I still think it is more fun to get white paper and some color pens and move the gears manually. Maybe it's because I really don’t have any skill in this area--or could just be because I'm old fashioned. In any case, we seem to do everything electronically in this new age--so why not make a spyrograph? Read on to find out how.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• GIMP

1. 
   Open New Blank Page

   Open GIMP and create a new blank white page. Actually, this is your first artistic choice. I chose white to replicate making a spyrograph the old-fashioned way. You can just as easily use a color or textured background, or even an image file to draw your spyrograph on.

2. 
   Select Shape and Color

   From the filters menu, choose the SPYROGIMP filter to open up the tool panel. You can specify everything here. Select the shape and color of your first spyrograph. Select the gear teeth of the inner and outer pieces. Select whether you want a polygon, triangle or octagon. You can even specify the starting point and angle.

3. 
   Select Brush Options

   Select your tool and brush size. You can create pencil lines, airbrush patterns and pen lines. Select from a variety of brushes and sizes. Experiment with different tools and colors to obtain the design you want. You can even choose mosaics and patterns to use in your design.

4. 
   First Pass

   This is the first pass. Once you have selected all of the elements just click OK to render your spyrograph. As with most GIMP tools I am impressed with the control and variety of shapes and objects you can create. I am just not sure it is “fun” in the same way the old plastic toy was.

5. 
   Final Image

   Once you have created your first pass, just reopen the tool and select new options and colors to add to your drawing. This is the same as changing pens and gears in the manual version. Keeping adding colors and designs until you think you have what you want. I stopped after three passes. Like I said, I don’t think I have any talent for this, and unlike other GIMP tools, I could not get lost in this one. Just because I found it boring, however, doesn’t mean you will, so if you like drawing with digital gears you'll love this little tool.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember to save your files under unique names to protect your image archive.
• Experiment with different images and backgrounds.

Resources

• GIMP