When you think of software used to create art, you probably picture design tools like Adobe Creative Cloud and Corel Painter. One title that probably doesn’t cross your mind is Microsoft Excel. Excel is for making spreadsheets. It’s about data entry, number crunching, and complex reporting. Essential stuff, but pretty dry.
That being the case, it may surprise you that there are people out there using Excel to create works of art. Even more surprising: some of them are really good. Here are some examples of Excel artists, along with an overview of how they do what they do.
Art with Excel? How??
You might be wondering how spreadsheet software could possibly be used for artistic expression. But if you consider how digital art works, it actually makes perfect sense.
Any digital image is just a collection of pixels – tiny points rendered in different colors that combine to form a picture. The key to understanding Excel as an artistic tool is to picture each cell in a spreadsheet as a pixel. When the cells are sized small enough, they can serve that very purpose. Then it’s a simple (if time-consuming) matter of shading each cell as needed to create the image you’ve envisioned.
This is a very high-level description of how Excel can create art, which no-doubt makes it sound easier than it is. The pros probably know a few shortcuts and other tricks. However, in essence, it boils down to shading small cells to create a larger image. Now that you have a sense of how it’s done, let’s look at a few examples of who’s doing it and what their work looks like.
Tatsuo Horiuchi
The most impressive and well-known Excel artist out there is probably Japan’s Tatsuo Horiuchi. Using Excel exclusively, Horiuchi has created numerous jaw-dropping landscape images fit for the walls of any art studio.
You might think Horiuchi uses Excel to create his masterpieces for an interesting challenge. However, Horiuchi doesn’t see it as a challenge. In fact, he insists that compared to conventional design tools like MS Paint, Excel actually “has more features and is easier to use.” And while you may be skeptical of this claim, the man’s work speaks for himself.
Check out some examples of Horiuchi’s work here – and prepare to gain a whole new respect for this ‘boring’ old spreadsheet software.
Emma Stevens
Emma Stevens of Australia is another artist who uses Microsoft Excel as her canvas. And though her work is quite different from Horiuchi’s, it’s comparably impressive in its own way.
Whereas Horiuchi tends to depict scenes of nature, Stevens finds inspiration in more urban environments. The city skylines she depicts are works of impressive precision. As for why she chose Excel to bring these images to life, one reason she gives is the freedom of having an Undo option – a freedom one does not have with traditional artistic tools.
You can see some of Stevens’ work and learn more about her story here.
Nintendo Fan Art
Not all Excel art is as breathtaking as Horiuchi’s work or as realistic as Stevens’. However, even the simpler stuff is often pretty fun.
For example, there’s a sizeable community out there who use Excel to create images of their favorite Nintendo characters. The pixelated art style used in games from the 8-bit era make these characters the perfect subjects for art created in Excel. While these images may never adorn an art-gallery wall, It must be fun for NES fans to create accurate replicas of Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, and other classic characters.
You can check out one good example of Excel-made Nintendo fan art here. And if you’d like to become a pixel-art Picasso yourself, check out this guide to creating similar 8-bit masterpieces.
Also, if you need a copy of Microsoft Excel (be it for its intended purpose or to create artwork), you should know that many higher-ed students can get it and all other Office software for free through their school. Search for your school through OnTheHub to find out if you can get Microsoft Office for free.