Drawing sketches on a Canvas with your body (ft. p5.js and ml5.js)
Dea Bankova
Drawing on a web canvas via body movements is easier than you might think, and in this workshop, we are going to do exactly that. We’ll start off by learning how to use machine learning pose estimation with the JavaScript library ml5.js on a video stream of faces and hands via a webcam. Using this information, we will create motion-controlled or facial features-driven sketches with p5.js. Think drawing with hand gestures or generating flowers that follow your eyes. We will cover enough examples to allow you to create your own unique sketches by extending on the techniques we use. You’ll leave with at least the beginnings of a body motion driven artwork that you can show off at the festival.
This intermediate workshop requires foundational JavaScript knowledge (variables, functions, loops, loading libraries, requestAnimationFrame) and basic familiarity with p5.js. Not familiar with p5.js? Check out the p5 documentation or spend ~2 hours with The Coding Train intro to creative coding videos before attending and you’ll be all set.
Workshop requirements
- laptop with a webcam (integrated or external)
About Dea Bankova
Dea Bankova is a creative developer focusing on data-based visual storytelling. In her day job as a data visualisation developer at Reuters, she has to put to use her artistic sensibilities and technical skills in web development and data to craft unique pages on topics ranging from Eurovision, the World Cup, and quantum cryptography, to the war in Ukraine, as well as technically challenging pieces such as the Reuters 2024 US election live results maps. Outside of work, she also dabbles in experimental data art and works that broadly fall under the creative coding umbrella. Both her personal and professional work has won awards at places such as IIB and SND.
She is also a community organiser and tech workshop facilitator, and for the past year, she has been running c3s: Creative Coding Crafts Space in London, where she runs creative coding workshops. She loves having fun with code and pushing the boundaries of what web pages are supposed to look like, and she believes in the ‘craft of code’, i.e. both the creative practice of coding itself and the use of code in creative practices.
