Radical Impressionist: A Mathematician Paints

Dynamic Symmetry Introduction  What is Dynamic Symmetry? How can Dynamic Symmetry help the artist design his painting? How would you use a Dynamic Symmetry grid to evaluate other paintings?  Or to determine if the painting was constructed with the help of a dynamic symmetry grid? What is the Rule of Thirds? What are the advantages of Dynamic Symmetry over the Rule of Thirds? What is Harmonic Armature? What are the differences between the Dynamic Symmetry and the Harmonic Armatures? Was Dynamic Symmetry invented by Jay Hambidge around 1910? Who also wrote about Dynamic Symmetry? Mathematics and Dynamic Symmetry What is the Mathematics behind Dynamic Symmetry? Geometry? Which Euclidean Theorems or Axioms are used in Dynamic Symmetry? How did the Classical Greeks and the Egyptians use the concepts behind Dynamic Symmetry? What role did musical theory play in Dynamic Symmetry? Art and Dynamic Symmetry Which artists have consciously and publicly used Dynamic Symmetry?  Sub-con...

Introduction It's helpful to have your transparent grids in a folder on your computer that is easily accessible. Construction 1.Select an existing painting to be overlaid with a grid and drag it to Photoshop (or open it with Photoshop). 2. Find the desired "PNG" grid for the overlay on your painting. (See other posts for instructions on the creation of this particular hand-made grid), 3. Drag it over your painting image in Photoshop.  Sometimes the painting image itself has a color profile that doesn't allow an overlay. In this case do a Screen shot of the painting jpeg image (see below for instructions) to convert it to a png without the color profile and start over. 4. Stretch the overlay to fit the painting by grabbing the corners and dragging to the image corners. 5. Convert it to transparent by changing the setting in the layer from "normal" to 'multiply'.  If the overlay is black with white or light lines, use the setting "screen" or ...

Karen at the Marigold Arts Exhibition: Return to the Rivers Karen Halbert is a full time landscape painter, primarily of the Southwest. She was torn away from careers in mathematics and computers to follow her life-long passion: painting. Though she paints in the Southwest, she also captures the images that permeate her dreams – of the powerful ocean waves of the Pacific, home of her childhood. Driven by the purity of elements of mathematics, found in areas such as dynamic symmetry and chaos theory, she strives to go far beyond her analytical training. The logic of composition and pattern is second nature to Halbert; she is free to experiment with other aspects that help her capture the underlying beauty of the natural world. Her training in the Classical techniques as well as Impressionism serve her well. She can concentrate on capturing the beauty of the landscape surrounding her. Driven by the light of the southwest, Halbert made a conscious life-style decision to move to...

  Albert Handell Intuitive Composition Part II Armatures applied to additional paintings chosen from the 1988 Albert Handell book, Intuitive Composition . I am very excited to share with you some information I have gathered from Albert’s book, Intuitive Composition . As I continue to re-read the book, I see references to composition principles, many which seem to be based on Mathematics or Geometry sometimes found in Dynamic Symmetry (at least from my point of view). I have selected paintings from the second part of his book that have descriptions that emphasize compositional elements that are worth analyzing from the point of view of Dynamic Symmetry. The comments reveal to me a deep interest in many of the aspects of Dynamic Symmetry. I have quoted some of the descriptions and applied armatures to the paintings for further analysis. There is much more in this book and I highly recommend it. The assumption of Intuitive Comp...