Robert's Minecraft Diamond Pickaxe on Canvas

Bob (6 years, 10 months) is a Minecraft enthusiast just like his one-year older brother. They often play Minecraft together, because ”it's fun and we have a family account”, confirmed Bob. Boys also play Minecraft with Lego and other plastic figurines, which they received as a birthday gifts from their classmates. 

Today Bob decided to paint his favourite Minecraft game tool: the Diamond Pickaxe. He tested different techniques (brushing and rolling). He thought that coating the canvas with a roller was fast and fun, so it was a winning technique. Bob also tried Jackson Pollockian dripping paint with stick technique, but not the other revolutionary techniques (splatter and action technique), that Pollock invented. Bob has already tried the action technique (see my previous post on Bob's take on Mona Lisa), and the splatter technique is something you would not want your child to try out in your living room. 

Then we moved from traditional art making to the use of software in art. Bob designed a logo with Textcraft — the first multimedia word processor for Amiga software/computers — and glued it on the canvas. Prior to this we looked at some pictures off the internet to see what artists have done before. We discovered that a certain pop artist named Andy Warhol used Amiga software to create an iconic video and several portraits of singer Debbie Harry, which were cool. We agreed, that conventional and computer artwork together quite well, especially if you can't replicate fonts so neatly as the Textcraft software.

We cut out also a pixel stencil from an old rubber. (It was a fiddly and dangerous step, so I had to step in. I did explain Bob that blood has always been present in art, since the times of cavemen, to medieval church artefacts to the battle scenes of World Wars, etc.).  Bob used stencil to create the pixelated pickaxe. Prior to this he mixed colours to match the original design of the pickaxe.

Bob was quite pleased to see his Diamond Pickaxe framed. Bob chose a golden frame because he likes elements made of minerals, which is what they do also in Minecraft build stuff using various materials (including but not limited to minerals and precious stones).

Here is a video of Bob painting his Diamond Pickaxe: