How to Do Text Drawings How to Do Ascii Art

Windell Oskay on Flickr

It'due south fun and easy to create ASCII fine art with your computer keyboard, a text editor, and your imagination. Here are ideas to get started.

Creating artwork with a computer keyboard is called ASCII art. You probably do not know ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It is a set of characters (letters, numbers, punctuation) originally based on the English language alphabet that encodes 128 specified characters: the numbers 0-nine, the messages a-z and A-Z, some basic punctuation symbols, and a few other characters. Only 95 of the ASCII characters actually print, however, and they're all on your reckoner keyboard.
It's fun and like shooting fish in a barrel to create ASCII art with your computer keyboard, a text editor, and your imagination.

Creating artwork with a computer keyboard is called ASCII art. ASCII stands for American Standard Lawmaking for Information Interchange. It'south a fix of letters, numbers, and punctuation that encodes 128 characters: numbers 0-9, letters a-z and A-Z, punctuation symbols, and a few other characters. But 95 of the ASCII characters actually print, yet, and they're all on your estimator keyboard.

While ASCII characters are used to transmit, store, and display data, people accept found another use for them: create fine art.

Here is the simplest possible example of ASCII fine art, an emoticon:

@}-;-'—

Information technology's a rose, if you have not guessed, with the bloom on the left and ; and ' every bit thorns. Creating this emoticon is a corking mode to start to play with the possibilities of messages, numbers, and punctuation to create images.

Hither's another piece of cake example, from the Wikipedia article on ASCII art:

(\_/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

Recreating these images makes you lot see, for instance, the use of \_/ to ascertain the area between the acme ears, too as the use of ' for eyes in the image.

These guidelines tin assistance you create ASCII artwork:

• • Use a text editor, for example, Notepad or Notepad++, with the image you lot want to copy next to your computer.
  • Utilise a stock-still-width (mono-spaced) font like Courier. Proportional fonts brand spaces more narrow and fat messages similar M and Due west wider which makes it hard to create an image with keyboard characters. Information technology's why you should use a text editor.
  • Utilize thin letters for light areas where you desire lots of white to come through.
  • Utilise fat letters like M and Due west for night areas of your image. Other letters like East, F, R, requite you an in-between pick to fill in spaces in your artwork.
  • Every bit you create an image, pay attending to the edges of the alphabetic character forms. Yous might find the round edges of J or Grand or P help ascertain parts of your image, for example, by adding a bear upon of dark with the rest of the letter area adding white.
  • If y'all desire to add color, first create the paradigm with your keyboard then color individual characters and lines of characters, as needed.
  • At that place are at least two ways to create ASCII fine art, character by character as you lot blazon left to right then line later line OR create a canvas of empty spaces and lines of these empty spaces and then place your cursor to blazon a character in a precise spot.

These examples might make you think ASCII art is not existent art, or not serious fine art. However, creating these images does do one thing serious art does, it forces you lot to run across what yous create. You might see a rose, a bunny, and a cat. Recreating these images makes you see, for example, the apply of \_/ to define the area betwixt the top ears, as well as the utilize of @ for optics in one image and ' in the other image.

For me, at least, all art is fun, challenging, and makes me see what I otherwise ignore. ASCII art meets all three criteria.

The projects we'll do recreate fine art created past others, especially Joan Stark whose work I find very approachable. But there are many other examples. Definitely check out the tutorials section beneath for Stark'south website and others. You WILL get lost for hours, maybe days.

A Simple ASCII Art Project

The first fine art projection is from Daniel Au, whose tutorial is linked at the bottom of this article:

                     __.two,                     (__," |                         | |                         | |                         | |                         | |                         | |                         | |------------,                        /               \\                        |                |\                        |,._  |,______\ |||                        || //'     ||  || |                        || ((      ||  || |                        || `\\     ||  || M                        ||   \\    ||  ||                       /_|   /_|  /_| /_|                

It's a fun image. But information technology besides tin can be created easily with either a canvas of blank spaces and lines, where you identify your cursor to type characters, or by typing spaces and characters line by line.

Here's what Au came upward with for the final image with his giraffe:

              O  )    __.2,           \ | /        O          )  (__," |%         - (_) -   O              )       | #%          / | \                 )        | |%    O          )          | #%           O )            # |%         ,~               | |% -- ~| ~   `O>            | |------------,     |  ||_</)__         / ###  #####    \\     | //'/""            |####   """" ### |\     //                  |,._  |,_###__\ |||     A quick sketch of a     |                   || //'     ||  || |     tree, bird, and giraffe D   |                   || ((      ||  || |        past Daniel C. Au (dcau)  C  |                   ||  \\     ||  || Grand   A |                   ||   \\    ||  ||    U \_,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,/_|,,,/_|,,/_|,/_|,,,,,,,,,,,,,,                

Pretty neat, if you inquire me. Observe on the lesser left he has added DCAU to sign his artwork. You tin and should practice the same for your creations.

A More Complicated ASCII Art Project

This image comes from Joan Stark, apparently the first big artwork she created. You lot might find it easier to create if you commencement with a canvas of empty spaces and then add characters. Discover the wonderful apply of (( and @@ for the fire coming out of the dragon. Her work is extremely clever and resourceful.

                                      ~ Fire-Breathing Dragon ~  7/96                                                           ___                                                        .~))>>                                                       .~)>>                                                     .~))))>>>                                                   .~))>>             ___                                                 .~))>>)))>>      .-~))>>                                                 .~)))))>>       .-~))>>)>                                             .~)))>>))))>>  .-~)>>)>                         )                 .~))>>))))>>  .-~)))))>>)>                      ( )@@*)             //)>))))))  .-~))))>>)>                    )[electronic mail protected](@@               //))>>))) .-~))>>)))))>>)>                  (( @[e-mail protected]).              //))))) .-~)>>)))))>>)>                ))  )@@*[email protected]@ )          //)>))) //))))))>>))))>>)>             ((  ((@@@[email protected]@             |/))))) //)))))>>)))>>)>            )) @@*. )@@ )   (\_(\-\b  |))>)) //)))>>)))))))>>)>          (( @@@([email protected](@ .    _/`-`  ~|b |>))) //)>>)))))))>>)>           )* @@@ )@*     (@) (@)  /\b|))) //))))))>>))))>>         (( @. )@( @ .   _/       /  \b)) //))>>)))))>>>_._          )@@ (@@*)@@.  (6,   half-dozen) / ^  \b)//))))))>>)))>>   ~~-.       ( @[e-mail protected]@. @@@.*@_ ~^~^~, /\  ^  \b/)>>))))>>      _.     `,        ((@@ @@@*.(@@ .   \^^^/' (  ^   \b)))>>        .'         `,         ((@@).*@@ )@ )    `-'   ((   ^  ~)_          /             `,           (@@. (@@ ).           (((   ^    `\        |               `.             (*[email protected]*              / ((((        \        \      .         `.                               /   (((((  \    \    _.-~\     Y,         ;                              /   / (((((( \    \.-~   _.`" _.-~`,       ;                             /   /   `(((((()    )    (((((~      `,     ;                           _/  _/      `"""/   /'                  ;     ;                       _.-~_.-~           /  /'                _.-~   _.'                     ((((~~              / /'              _.-~ __.--~                                        ((((          __.-~ _.-~                                                    .'   .~~                                                    :    ,'                                                    ~~~~~                                  

Final Thoughts

What else would you desire to create with your keyboard, a simple text editor, and your imagination?

As y'all can come across, ASCII art projects also feel like puzzles yous sit with for hours to piece together on a table. Y'all type characters on your keyboard instead of fish out pieces from a box to friction match an empty spot in your puzzle.

If you want to share your artwork, the easiest manner is to create a screenshot and paste information technology into an e-mail or save as an image yous can send or upload to a web page. Unfortunately, even modern web browsers do non respect mono-spaced fonts needed by ASCII artwork. Microsoft Outlook has not supported mono-spaced fonts since the belatedly 1990s.

If you want to post your prototype in a web page, as code, y'all'll need to convert all your spaces to the HTML non-breaking space tag and use the BLOCKQUOTE and PRE tags to preserve your mono-spaced formatting.

Learn More

ASCII Art

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII_art

Convert images to ASCII Art

https://manytools.org/hacker-tools/catechumen-images-to-ascii-art/

The rich history of ASCII Art

https://thenewstack.io/surprisingly-rich-history-ascii-art/

Lost Ancestors of ASCII Art

https://www.theatlantic.com/applied science/archive/2014/01/the-lost-ancestors-of-ascii-fine art/283445/

ASCII Art

https://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/ASCII_art

ASCII Art Generator

http://www.crazy4computers.net/ascii-art.html

Vintage ASCII Typewriter Art from the 1930s

https://clickamericana.com/topics/discoveries-inventions/vintage-ascii-art-from-the-1930s-typeys-fabricated-with-old-manual-typewriters

Coding with text art in the Classroom

https://world wide web.erintegration.com/2018/10/22/coding-with-text-art-ascii-art-in-the-classroom

Traditional and Not-traditional ASCII Fine art

http://theartlady2017.blogspot.com/2019/06/ascii-art-traditional-and-not.html

Catechumen image to ASCII Art in Python

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnJ_mL_ASQE

ASCII Art Annal

https://www.asciiart.european union/

About the Author

Tim is an award-winning writer and technologist who enjoys teaching tech to non-technical people. He has many years feel with spider web sites and applications in business, technical, and creative roles. He and his wife take two kids, now teenagers, who are mad about video games.

Also In The December 2021 Issue

December 2021 Consequence

Looking for a new manner to encode your secret messages? Attempt steganography!

Why find the perfect Christmas tree when you tin can brand it?

Pattern is about solving issues, from donuts to race cars, how we eat to what to article of clothing in cold weather condition.

Looking for a way to liven up your coding sessions? Check out our Hydra workshop!

Bank check out our interview with Sam Henry, the programmer who coded Noah Text!

Learn about the importance of simulations, 1 the coolest types of engineering around!

Join us for the adjacent installment of our Fractured Fairy Tales Scratch series!

Larn how video platforms like Zoom are being used to further Peacebuilding during the pandemic!

It's fun and like shooting fish in a barrel to create ASCII art with your figurer keyboard, a text editor, and your imagination. Hither are ideas to get started.

Learn how computers are able to create audio for all your favorite movies and music!

Learn most some of the different tools used by programmers.

Larn how Amazon is running its stores without whatsoever cashiers!

Check out how scientists are using the Winograd Schema Challenge to make smarter computers!

A drove of the links from the December 2021 issue all in one place.

A collection of fun and inspiring stories well-nigh tech from December 2021.

simsbecry1936.blogspot.com

Source: https://kidscodecs.com/create-ascii-art/

Share this post