Tag Archives: Design

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Staggering Stride (version 1)

StaggeringStride1ematted

It looks like a boat. It looks like a water strider—those bugs I used to see skate around on the surfaces of ditch water after big rainstorms in Nebraska. It also makes me think of the Mahayana and Hinayana, which are boats, or vehicles, figuratively, in Buddhist epistemology. It looks like the boat could be seen as traveling across a large body of water on the surface of a planet. You can see the curved horizon of this planet on the right side of the picture. I like how the boat appears closely to you as the viewer, but the planet appears as if it’s tens of thousands of miles away. It gives it the sense of multiple points of view—an expanded sense of perception—as may be experienced in dreams while observing something.

When a string on a cello or a guitar is plucked, it vibrates back and forth in order to produce the sound it makes. The string actually moves in a circular motion, like a jump rope might. I have noticed that vibrating strings make the shape of a boat or ship between the insertion points. Physicists have taught us that matter is really just non-physical energy at sub-atomic levels. Some theorize that matter is fundamentally made of superstrings as theorized about in superstring theory. Thus all matter is just countless superstrings harmonizing and cacophanizing everywhere.

In Judeo-Christian literature, you can read about Noah’s Ark, and the story about the world flooding due to God’s wrath. I don’t want to try to prove the veracity of this story here, but I do want to make associations and correlations for artistic and intellectual purposes. The bow of a ship is designed to “cut” through water with the least amount of resistance as possible. Thus they have narrow wedged rostrums. The idea of the least amount of resistance is also found in Taoism, as Lao Tzu wrote that water seeks the path of least resistance as it travels down the folds, crevices, and foothills of mountains.

The idea I want to emphasize here is “the least amount of resistance as possible.” This is actually a strategy that applies to people—us—manipulating and managing matter and life in general with the best outcomes in mind. For example, when I enter into a new social situation, I like to scope and gauge things before I start accepting more responsibility, management, and control. It’s my method—one of several—of attempting to create harmony.

Getting more abstract here, I imagine that certain combinations of sounds, melodies, and jingles can act as codes in environments  so as to produce certain effects. Codes, perhaps, to open doors or to lock them. Basically, waves of all kinds—physical or non-physical—are patterns, and if they are harmonious with other wave patterns, then I believe they have to potential to create beneficial situations. Beneficial to knowledgeable users of course.

 

Specifications:

Title: Staggering Stride (version 1)

Source mediums: Water-based ink, alcohol-based marker, pencil, water, and rubbing alcohol on paper, manipulated digitally with Photoshop

Print medium: Hewlett Packard printer ink from Hewlett Packard DesignJet Z2100 printer on Hewlett Packard print paper (Note: print can be made with archival paper and printer if requested)

Digital manipulation completed: 4/10/2018

Dimensions of print: 45 inches by 34 inches

Number of limited edition prints: 25

Contact me: artofevan@hotmail.com

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April 11, 2018 · 7:31 am
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A Synthesis of Matter and Mind (version 12)

A Synthesis of Matter and Mind (version 12)

A Synthesis of Matter and Mind (version 12)

I posted version 14 of this series back in October 2013 as you may remember. I’d created this version before version 14 obviously, but I decided back then to post version fourteen instead of version 12.

This particular version has more of a holiday feel to it, and it seems to express some characteristics of gold. Sometimes the drawings I make in pen or pencil end up looking like they have characteristics of gold when I manipulate them digitally.

While the original drawing is completely different in color scheme, the structure is the same. The original drawing actually only has one of the four smaller circles surrounding the main circular design in the middle.

When I started manipulating the original image on the computer, I wanted to explore and experiment with how it might look if I copied and pasted the smaller circular designs provided in the original drawing.

These series look like they could be sort of religious, like they might be architectural designs for Byzantine churches from the early Christian empire, but I wasn’t really trying to emphasize a religious message with this image. I just want people to enjoy looking at the mandelic designs I sometimes make.

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December 16, 2013 · 7:41 am
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Hydrogen (version 1)

Hydrogen (version 1)

While in the process of preparing the different versions of A Synthesis of Matter and Mind, my eye was attracted to the idea of making one of the smaller circles into a work of its own. Luckily, with the software I have on my computer, I can do that.

So I selected this circle from the lower left hand corner of A Synthesis of Matter and Mind, flipped it around, and altered some of the colors so as to create more of the effects I wanted to bring out.

It’s another simple idea with some complexity added to it from the distortions, textures, and amorphous clouds of color. I’ve been attracted to an idea, as of late, that expresses non-physical vibrational fields, anchored to more physical, dense fields.

So the little black mosaic pieces composing the definite designs and compositions anchor the more amorphous and cloudy fields of color.

While it isn’t expressed in this particular image, I’ve also been imagining the lighter, nonphysical states as like cubes or translucent boxes, and inside those boxes are the more hard physical objects.

Another way this idea can be imagined is like the flesh, ligaments, and tendons that are ligated to bones in the body. Or perhaps like dense physical objects, like a tree twig, surrounded by a jello cube.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this one as well. Thanks for viewing, and also thank you for sharing.

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October 21, 2013 · 8:25 am
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Pastel Dust of Pollen and Lepidoptera (version 6)

Pastel Dust of Pollen and Lepidoptera (version 6)

Digital material from one of my original oil paintings, some of my mixed media pastel drawings, ball-point pen drawings, and some real butterfly wings went into the creation of this piece.

I used some of the scanned material from my Wrecked Tangles (Encircled) A series project as the background. Also, the design from Industrial Mandala was used. Again, Industrial Mandala is a digital manipulation from my original oil painting: Of Which I Am a Part.

I incorporated some text on Wikipedia’s definition of a butterfly in the background. You can make out a little bit of it, but my intention was to add some filler to the background design, and I thought a scientific description of the butterfly was fitting. Lepidoptera is the Latin term for butterfly.

The butterfly wings were actually some remains of a butterfly that one of our cats dragged in after stalking it in our backyard garden. For some reason, I hung on to the wings and put them up on a shelf. Later on, I had this idea that I should scan the wings on to the computer so as to use them for a future project.

Well, here is that future project. I’ve been wanting to explore some more of my ideas using the mandala design format. This is another result of that. I feel that I’m getting a better feel of what I want to master. Eventually, I want to start experimenting with using diagrams and drawings of parts of plants, animals, people, and machines. This image I’m sharing with you here is where I’m at for now however.

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September 9, 2013 · 7:50 am