Flying fish and fractals

Flying fish/mermaid (detail) 2021

Research – it’s a key component of idea conception. I’ve been drawn to fractal figures for quite some time and included them as a side study a few years ago. I felt like I have finished with them yet something about their strange irregular patterning keeps drawing me back.

This week I returned to the beach for inspiration and experimented with creating sea creatures from pouring paper pulp . Some worked, some didn’t. I found myself looking again at the fractal shapes caused by sound vibrations in water. When I drew them as forms, they seemed to be fantastical creatures of legend, a cross between a seahorse or dugong and a shell, a mermaid/flying fish, a dancing manta ray.

I was impatient to see how these could evolve which led me to research marine creatures and anamorphic forms. Did I tell you I love Google? I began searching for a word I seemed to recall – diatrons. No luck, this yielded computer circuit boards. Then I went down quite a few rabbit holes looking at Ernst Haeckel’s Creatures of the Deep, his luscious illustrations of radiolarians and finally microscopic aquatic diatoms.

All very interesting but not what I was really looking for. I returned to fractal forms in nature and realised that I already had all my inspiration already. The sketches I made, the photos of estuaries and waterways I had once taken from my window seat in aeroplanes, the crazy vibrational patterns in water, all propel me back into creating from my own imagination.

I had been looking for a ‘quick fix’ a picture or pictures I could use to start me on this new journey. For a moment there, I had forgotten how to #trust the process, something I talk about a lot in my creativity courses. Note to self: Listen to your own words! Today I’m going drawing again and I will be looking for those fractal patterns in nature and drawing crazy anamorphic forms. Who knows what may emerge…

Daily artwork - sea creature

Daily artwork - flying fish/mermaid sea creature2