Abstract art methodologies

Posted by Dan on Jan 10th, 2008
2008
Jan 10

tangle

At the library, I found a number of “how-to” books on abstract art. The methodologies were the same:

Start with a basic recipe

  • Try a lot of variations
  • Pick the one that looks best

These particular books emphasized physical techniques, such as cutting shapes out of construction paper and moving them around. The computer art programs do something similar, except digitally with random numbers. Start with an equation for a fractal, generate a bunch of variations, and pick the one that looks best. What has changed is that computers can generate the variations, and people can spend more time on the selection.

The first step is the most interesting. Selection is not so difficult, grinding out variations “in the style of” is not so difficult. The difficult thing is to come up with a new recipe.