Nature Inspired Print

11 JUNE, 2018

A photo of plants at our place in the country; simple things like these leaves inspire me.

Analogies: Nature Inspired Prints

This nature inspired print is another piece in what I call the Analogy series, a body of work that is kind of a sub-series of Suchness. It is more narrowly focused on plant and leaf imagery, but still retains (I hope) that mystical feeling. Like the other works in that series, it is a monotype (monoprint) with added media, which usually includes colored pencil or crayons, and some kind of collage elements. Passage Between II is also part of this series, along with Analogy I and Analogy II; the latter has been sold to PNC Bank and now hangs in their corporate headquarters. (You can see these further down in this post.)

monoprint with mixed media artwork of leavesagainst the night sky

Day into Night, monotype with mixed media, 14.75 x 13 inches

ingredients: Rives BFK heavyweight printmaking paper, lithography inks, Caran d'Ache crayons, vintage map, watercolor pencils

In Day Into Night, I draw on my years of memories of that in-between time when the stars begin to appear, but it's not quite dark yet. Perhaps part of the sky is a dusky pink, and then the next time you look up, it's a deep blue, and the moon is rising. For me it's that feeling of transition in this piece that makes it work. The lines of the constellations connect with the veins of the leaves. All of nature is one, and at peace in this moment.

monoprint of translucent leaves on a map — Analogy I

monoprint of leaves in magenta, gold, and blue — Passage Between II

monoprint of leaves with map in teal, light blue, and maroon

Analogy II, monoprint with mixed media,

Patterns in Nature

In this series, I'm playing with the similarities between the patterns found in nature. You've probably noticed some of these. For instance, the spiral pattern found in sea shells is repeated in the spiraling cloud formation of a hurricane, and in the shape of a spiral galaxy. Did you know that the growth pattern of an individual tree follows the same pattern as the growth of the entire forest? "What do mountains, broccoli and the stock market have in common? The answer to that question may best be explained by fractals, the branch of geometry that explains irregular shapes and processes, ranging from the zigs and zags of coastline to Wall Street market risk." Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2011-10-beautiful-math-fractals.html#jCp Somewhere, I heard it explained that the universe is lazy, and likes to use the same set of instructions to make everything. Why reinvent the wheel, right? These patterns are called fractals, and they really are in everything, including the structures of mountains and rivers, the branching of trees and blood vessels, and DNA. Take a look at the gorgeous photos on Earth's Most Stunning Natural Patterns by Jess McNally.

A couple of samples:

close-up of veins in leaf by Jess McNally

The video below illustrates this idea well, and saves you from trying to decipher any long and winding, garbled explanation I might come up with. I love Sudharsanan Sampath's advice at the end, that you should look for fractal patterns in your life, "maybe in your hand, the night sky, or on your cat."