Radical Impressionist: A Mathematician Paints

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 ...

My first medium of choice was watercolor.  I loved how the different pigments reacted to the paper so I spent a few years experimenting with this, analyzing the pigment qualities and trying to find unique mixtures of the colors. I began to paint “en plein air” during this period, and using a spray bottle I was able to capture the scene in front of me without the paint drying too fast. The moisture of  Woodstock NY didn’t require this but certainly once I reached the dry New Mexico weather, I found the spray bottle useful. I tried to paint brighter and brighter works and purchased many instruction books on how to obtain deepened color using watercolors. But I began to realize that only with oils could I attain the depth of color that was my goal. Over the years though I still yearned for the feel of watercolor and how as it drops onto the paper unique effects could be obtained. At first with watercolor I was self taught, buying many books. One of my initial inspirations cam...

 8/10/19: Doing the Watercolor Part I had me thinking a lot about how perhaps to progress.  So i will continue (and finish) my Part II.  However, first I wanted to include a new Facebook post with my first watercolor in a long time: I pulled out my watercolors and attempted a favorite scene.  Some lessons learned: Don’t forget the focal point with its dark and light contest Try again with a limited palette of familiar colors (these colors happened to be available from a old palette which happened to have many colors laid out) Try to get darks without having to go back over them. Testing adding a 4th bullet by copy and pasting the third one: I will look for the painting with the notes and add the notes here. I found it useful to put the notes at the bottom of the painting.  They can easily be torn off.  The image is approximately in a golden mean ratio. If I like the painting I will use a frame 8x13.  Oh yes, I am going to have to deal w...

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...

The canyons of Ghost Ranch and Chama River are an hour’s drive from my Santa Fe home and I try to go there to paint as often as possible. This was the home of Georgia O’Keeffe. Sometimes I try to channel her style but more often I tend to want to use more color and also to use a Palette Knife (or knives).  I like the feel of working with a knife and you can judge for yourself but the results are often better for me. So, I have done a series of canyon color paintings recently primarily using palette knife. This is of the first large ones (18x24). I actually took some liberty with a nearby ‘canyon’, Diablo Canyon, just up the road from me. Its rock formation consists of tones of grey rather than the colors of the Ghost Ranch area. But I enhanced the color to reflect the early light of dawn to arrive at this: Diablo Canyon, Morning Glow, 18x24, oil. This sold at the Marigold Arts Gallery in Santa Fe. I then continued with he theme, but this time in my chosen venue of Cham...