Radical Impressionist: A Mathematician Paints

(Originally published Jan, 2019)  Everyone refers to Betty Edwards' book,  Drawing on the Right side of the Brain .  And I have to admit that it was an important book for me when I began to draw and paint seriously, in fact, so much so that it contributed to my efforts NOT to use the left side of my brain. But I was a Mathematician first and throughout my painting career I kept being bombarded with left-side ideas or logic. I couldn't escape it even if I tried. But I kept pursuing my need Not to allow logic to affect my painting. Finally this year I came to grips with the fact that I am driven by logic; I am an analyst first. And in fact I realized that for me, it's important to accept the logical part in order to grow as a painter.  So I determined that I would not discourage any left-brain ideas popping up while I paint.  And I would marry both sides of my brain perhaps to establish my brand as a painter-mathematician (or mathematician-painter). We all know th...

Notes Under Construction Recently I became aware of an interest in the study of turbulence in paintings. Googling turbulence in paintings leads to several sites with artists from Leonardi da Vinci to Van Gogh and Jackson Pollack. For example*, "a mathematical analysis of the works of Van Gogh reveals that the stormy patterns in many of his paintings are uncannily like real turbulence, as seen in swirling water or the air from a jet engine".  Some Links of Interest   Painting with Turbulence:  https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/04/01/396637276/van-goghs-turbulent-mind-captured-turbulence https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3292&context=all_theses - a master's thesis, very technical involving simulations. But it includes information about the history of the term, turbulence, in art beginning with Leonardi da Vinci: "More than five hundred years ago, Renaissance artist and engineer Leonardo da Vinci identified turbulence as a distinct n...

Introduction I have written down some thoughts about my struggles in a male-dominated part of the world. I think these thoughts would be of interest to young women just starting out. Women have made great strides since my days but some of my stories could still be worth writing down, reviewing and perhaps reading. This effort was prompted by a request to do a STEM interview with high school students. BUT think of this post as a draft for now. I wanted to capture steps in my life without worrying about how it reads. If I were to publicize this post I would want to make changes. But for now read it as a series of steps in my life that have brought me to my current position, one in which I am happy to be marrying two passions in my life: art and math. Early Careers The stories of my life careers include choosing between architecture and mathematics in my freshman year of high school. Aptitude scores indicated that a career as an architect would be a good one for me. But our ...

Golden Ratio Piedra Lumbre Piedra Lumbre II, 15x24, oil The Piedra Lumbre (shining stone) painting has a proportion that is approximately the golden ratio - or the golden mean, an irrational number, approximately 1.610287...., meaning continuing without end.  As an irrational number it cannot be expressed as a ratio of two integers.   I’ve done many paintings, with 10x16 dimension and a few at 15x24, and this 15x24, still with a ratio of 10/16 or 5/8. Note that these are two number in the Fibonacci sequence.  1,1,2,3,5,8, .... The radio of two consecutive numbers gets closer and closer to the golden mean as we progress through the sequence.  Try calculating:  5/3, 8/5/ 13/8, 21/13,... The golden mean is related to the golden spiral, a form found in nature everywhere since it in fact represents how growth takes form (think sunflowers, ferns, tree branches, Nautilus Shell). The ratio is thought to be the most pleasing to the eye, perhaps because it is so perv...

As I continue to pursue the underlying Mathematics in my painting I also am exploring making changes to my techniques. Not only will I consider the mathematical construction of my composition but also the juxtaposition of the abstract with the concrete.  This blog post will explain my use of a watercolor-like, abstract underpainting combined with the more concrete use of shapes with palette knife. Two years ago I observed the watercolor/pastel technique of Albert Handell and was intrigued. I finally tried this technique with oils alone, using Cobra's water-mixable oils.  At first I applied the paint thinly mixed with sufficient water. Then I began to paint primarily using a palette knife but also utilizing a brush for different effects, with thicker paint on top of the (dried) thin layer. These are my first two paintings based on this technique: both paintings were done with the assumption of the coloring of sunset during stormy skies. Sandias' Stages: The Sandias is ba...