Beats two pairs

My current project is a woodblock printed over a series of inkjet-printed fractals. The woodcut is a portrait of Gaston Julia, adapted from the couple of pictures I was able to find online.

Gaston Julia


Sosaku-hanga woodblock print using sumi ink on kitakata paper, 8" x 10". Artist's proof.

The fractals are Julia sets, of course, and I've been experimenting with how to best take advantage of their natural symmetry. The end result is a little bit like a playing card.

Three Julias


Sosaku-hanga woodblock prints using sumi ink over digital inkjet prints on kitakata paper, 9" x 20.5" each.

I still have some more fractals I need to render and print. I suppose I'll eventually end up with enough slightly creepy copies of Gaston to wallpaper a room or something.

Heat & light

Sometimes I miss Pittsburgh, in spite of everything. It had some really nice old industrial buildings. So did Providence, for that matter. Lately I've been wondering if maybe I should move back to the eastern half of the continent once I finish school, but then I remember how miserable the climate is there during about two-thirds of the year.

Still, decaying urban squalor has its appeal.

Foundry



The formula is Newton-ish and embossed. That's all I remember without re-opening the parameters.

Fewmets: put 'em in the blender

Ugh, school is completely kicking my ass. I do have some fractal-related projects in the works, but it's going to be several weeks, probably, before any of them are far enough along to be worth looking at.

I've been trying to keep up with the digital end of things in a small way, by following the challenges posted to the Ultra Fractal mailing list. On my second go-round with Challenge #2, I was thinking about school, and about the people I was spending time with in my very first couple of semesters. One of the long-term effects of that association is that now I get very angry and upset when I come across any references to dragons, particularly in a fantasy-novel or comic book or role-playing game kind of thing. (Fortunately, I never had all that much interest in those particular entertainments. Still, it's an annoying sort of neurosis to have.)

This image is therefore dedicated to —— and —— and their drawings of cute goo-eyed dragons. Thanks for the lingering bitterness, you jerks.

Dragon Pureé



Man oh man, I sure do get cranky and irritable when I'm in school.

Am I awake? Now what?

From the Institute of Druidic Technology, an early mousepad with fractal decoration. I think this one needs to go in the same category as that Mandelbrot Monk guy.

I'm back at school as of this week, and already miserably stressed out about what I'm going to do this year. I'm a senior now, so this is the big push to make something really impressive for my BFA show. Obviously, there should be at least some component that is fractal, but the difficult part is figuring out how to integrate that into the rest of the stuff I'm doing. It bothers me that there still is such a large division between the fractal-making part of my life and the serious-schoolwork part. I kind of just want to haul some of my fractal prints in to printmaking class and say, "See? This is what I've really been doing all this time. What would be the best way to frame them?"

I'm still chicken to do it. I suppose I still expect art people to be unable to take fractals seriously, which is silly of me, because they've been taking me seriously during all my smeary paper-litho experiments, and all my painstaking woodcuts. (But still, I say to myself, they took those seriously because of being lithography and woodcut, not because of the fractals! Grr, stupid useless self-doubt.)

The other stressful component of school, of course, is having to wake up much earlier than I would really like to. I only actually have one really early day a week, so I suppose it won't be so bad. And it's true that the sky is lovely during these fall mornings, the air cool and pleasant.

Urban Sunrise


Barnsley formulas, for architectural squareness, plus some gnarl and spiral traps, to break up the straight lines a bit.