Excel art, or the art of useful time wasting

I went to an Excel training session last week and whilst learning about creating and saving Macros (riveting) I fiddled about and produced something pretty good looking. Excel seems to be a good tool for making pictures with blocks of colour. Here is my first piece of Excel art, which I'm calling 'Roman Rock Pillars.'

(I would like you to be able to see the large version of this image when you click on it, but I'm new to blogging and don't know how to make that happen, so any tips are welcome.)


I found that I am not the first person to make pictures with Excel. Someone called Danielle Aubert has done it before and made a book containing all her experimental pictures. Here is one of them, and you can look at more on her website: http://www.danielleaubert.com/print/exceldrawings_book.html


Someone called Alice Sarmiento even has a term for Excel art. She calls it a petik, which is something like  twiddling your thumbs/wasting time when you're supposed to be working. Here is one of her pictures, and you can read a bit about her theory on petiks here: http://new-slang.com/2010/08/the-gentle-art-of-making-petiks/

 

Comments

  1. Ohmygosh I just read this now. Petiks is actually a verb, it's Filipino slang which roughly translates to "killing time when you're supposed to be working"! Excel Art is just one way to do so, and the article was supposed to be a joke, but I see how even that can get lost in translation. Thank you all the same! -Alice

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  2. Hi Alice, ah thanks - I don't think I'll be able to incorporate it into my every day language : ). It's a good joke! Excel Art is very enjoyable : ) xx

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  3. With Excel training in new york you can learn about how to create and save files.Excel seems to be a good tool for making pictures with blocks of color.Its beautiful blog.

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