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Experiment

Spiral portrait.

Turn any picture into a single spiral line that never breaks, as Claude Mellan did by hand in 1649.

100%

Drag to move around. ⌘ or Ctrl + scroll, or pinch, to zoom in. Double-click to zoom in there.Wanderer above the Sea of Fog · Caspar David Friedrich, c. 1818

Image

Wanderer above the Sea of FogCaspar David Friedrich, c. 1818My photoThe profile picture on this siteGirl with a Pearl EarringJohannes Vermeer, c. 1665Mona LisaLeonardo da Vinci, c. 1503Dürer, self-portraitAlbrecht Dürer, 1500Rembrandt, self-portraitRembrandt van Rijn, 1659The Great WaveKatsushika Hokusai, c. 1831Upload your photoYour image is processed in the browser. Nothing is uploaded.

Stroke

A worn lead. Pressing harder sheds dust that catches on the paper's grain.

Ink
GraphiteRed chalkSepiaPhoto colourEach bit of line takes the colour of the photo under it.
Graphite

Tone · Line

“Formatur unicus una non alter” — Claude Mellan
“The one and only, formed by one alone. Like no other.” Inscribed on Mellan's Sudarium, 1649.

How it works

In 1649, the French engraver Claude Mellan engraved the face of Christ on Veronica's veil with a single line. It starts at the tip of the nose, spirals outward and never breaks. The shadows come from the line getting thicker, not from extra strokes.

This tool does the same. A spiral moves out from the centre, and at each point it checks how dark the picture is underneath. The darker it is, the wider the line.

Each stroke shades the way its real tool would. The burin swells slowly and lifts sharply. Graphite leaves dust in the paper's grain. The dip pen opens on the downstroke and blots when it's dipped. The brush splats and sometimes runs watery. The ballpoint can't get wider, so it loops. The thread sews longer stitches where the picture is dark.

Every wobble comes from a fixed number, so a shared link redraws exactly the same drawing.

The idea came from this post by Kevin Ngo, who drew a portrait with a single spiral.

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