C25H52

(Fibonacci's Snail. Click Here To Learn About Fibonacci's Sequence)


The Universe is a complex and awe-inspiring place. It continues to challenge and surprise us at every turn, opening up new perspectives and opportunities the longer we look.

As far back as we can look into our history, we have been awe inspired by the seemingly magical world around us. Magnets. Perfect Spirals. Rainbows. Animals that live in unlivable conditions; at the Oceans floor around lava flow, worms in solid ice. The Universe thrives, against all odds. Not to mention meteors and the complex Celestial world above us.

In the past, we attributed these things to gods, magics, karma. Now, we are able to watch in wonder at our world, and then take a closer look, inspecting and decoding these wonders into something we can understand, something we can track and predict. Beneath the surface is a world teaming with information: numbers, genomes, orbital patterns. It can all be tracked. Those things we don't understand now, we will later. Our understanding evolves, and grows exponentially.


(Click Here to see a diagram of the temperature of Plasma on a candle.)

I'm just an artist. A human being with a lot of curiosity and an addiction to drawing and numbers. I'm trying to bridge the gap between the wonder we see in our every day lives and the fact that it is made of reliable, organized information. After all, it's the numbers, the code that make it beautiful.

These are 2 of my newest pieces that I will be showing in August and September with Portland City Art at Pioneer Place in Portland Oregon. They are from the Science and Math portion of the show, and are an effort to show that the beauty we see in the world around us has a method. This is the secrets beneath the beauty.

"C25H52"
14" x 11" Scratch Board Numberism etching.



The Candle wax is drawn with the molecular make up of Paraffin ( C25H52). The flame is drawn with the temperature of plasma at it's different points on a candle (800 C - 1400 C). The woman is drawn with the numbers of the clock, 1 - 12, signifying time in this fleeting moment. All of my people in my Science and Math series will be drawn with time, as this is all we have, and all we can hope for. We are experiencing this moment as sentient human life against all odds. We might as well take advantage of it while we can.


Details:



"Fibonacci's Snail"
4" x 7" Scratch Board Numberism Etching



Fibonaccis Sequence maps out a naturally occuring phenonenon that we see in nature and space. Pine Cones, Pineapples, Snails, the arrangement of seeds on a sunflower. They all follow the pattern perfectly.

Mathematically speaking, you simply start with 0 and 1 , add the two numbers to get your next number and do so again and again, adding the last 2 numbers.
0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 610 987 1597 2584 4181 6765 10946 ...
Creating a perfect spiral. This drawing is drawn with these numbers.




Detail:




Both of these pieces are available as prints on our FrogFaith online gallery at www.FrogFaith.com/gallery

I will be exhibiting these along with the rest of my Evening Series and Math & Science Series at Pioneer Place in Portland Oregon, August and September 2010. More information coming soon. These are Numberism drawings etched on Scratch Board.

Progress on A Rainy Day Wildfire...

I'm working on my new piece for Portland City Art's April show, themed, "A Rainy Day Wildfire".
This is the largest I've worked in scratch board so far (16 x 20), and poses all it's own challenges. Working in scratch board has been interesting so far. I'm drawing light, only light, and ignoring the shadows, which is the opposite of what I'm used to.

For this piece, I plan to finish it in black and white with red lighting filtering through an open window (There will probably also be some blue tones). This will be the first real attempt with this styling, which is what I plan for the next series, which will be the couple series to the last Perpetual Motion series, focusing on all those moments we cherish and revel in once the sun sets.

My photographer friend, Benjamin Frothingham took the photo for me. At one point, I wasn't sure if we were going to get the shot. First I lost my male model, then once I had a new male model, I lost my female model, found another one, and the guy dropped out. At the end of the night, my original photographer had gone home for the night and we were left with two girls and no photographer. Benjamin came to my rescue and shot the piece for me, and in the end, I decided to use what I had, the two girls. It's a moment I haven't captured so far with numberism, and one that is perfect for the piece, actually.

So after all the half stops and reversals, we got the shot, and I am now diligently working on it so that it will be ready for the show on April 15th.

It's 16 x 20 inches, and so far, I've drawn about 2 inches. There's much work to be done! You can assume that I'll be in my drawing room all next week and hardly reachable.

Here's a quick snap shot of the candle. (I won't be posting the finished piece online until after the show, so if you want to see it, you'll have to come.) :)

The image below is about 2.5 inches tall.




Also, I will be at Swan Day working on this today from 12 - 5pm at the Portland Expo Center. Seven of my originals are hanging (some new). They gave me a nice wide space for me and my booth, so I also have prints with me, including some of my limited editions (a new 30" x 24" limited of Transitional).
Tab and co are set up at Skidmore Saturday Market in our usual place with the rest of our prints.



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299792458

I've been feeling a little low lately. Generally if I don't get to work, I go a little nuts. If I don't get to draw, I get worse. Apparently, if I don't get to draw numberism for too long... well you can probably tell when talking to me that it's been too long.

I have a handful of ideas/plans I am working on or planning to work on that are sitting in front of me. I haven't quite decided how I'm going to attack them or in which order. So, stuck in a stalemate of artistic frustration, I needed an outlet. I needed the calm of numberism. I needed to key in and have nothing in the world exist besides numbers; gloriously simple, reliable numbers.

I don't draw fire or elementals nearly enough, so I decided to draw a candle. This is drawn with the number 299792458, which is the speed of light.

299792458 m/s

I am enjoying it and I can start to feel my mind center, finding clarity in the busy mess my mind has made for me to sift through. I hadn't realized just how helpful numberism is to me. I set up all the trouble in the world, and it knocks it down. Against the madness I am capable of creating, numberism consistently finds a way to quiet the storm. I don't know where I'd be without it.


This is one of those ideas I mentioned before. One of the many. Using formulas or equations to represent scientific theory through hopefully leading illustrations of the numbers' context...

There are more ideas.

One has to do with music... another with literature.... another with anatomy.... another with transportation.... another with time... time time time.....

I couldn't begin to assume which one will win out in the end, and I'm beginning to think that I will end up working on more than one...