While my heart and passion will always be with animal art, this year I became aware of another form of art which apparently is very popular, but of which I was completely unaware, that has captured my interest… it is called fractal art. Honestly, I have always frowned upon the digital or computer-generated art, because I am a purist and feel a true artist works with their hands and creates using the actual physical medium, whether it is paint, clay, pencils, pastels, whatever. I saw a piece of fractal art at an art show several of my pieces were featured in recently and one piece really caught my eye. The colors and image were breath-taking, but I wasn’t sure how it was created. Fortunately, at the artists’ reception, I was able to link up with the artist and ask her about her piece which I told her was striking in terms of the visual appeal, depth, color, light intensity, ambient light, and more. She told me the work was “fractal art,” and she that she had created the piece digitally. I was fascinated, so I immediately looked into it and was intrigued to get a program and start creating.
While colored pencil and pastel art will always be preferred mediums, I have started to venture into fractal art because I find it fascinating that you can create such beautiful pieces of abstract art with mathematical expressions.
Fractals are unique and complicated mathematical forms of art. Fractals are patterns, and they continue forever. Repeating these simple patterns over and over is what makes them become more and more complicated, detailed, and unique. There are different types of fractals, and you can actually find fractals in nature (maybe that is why I like them so much!) and not just on a computer screen. The fractals are generated and can be manipulated manually by assigning different geometric properties to produce multiple variations of the shape in continually reducing patterns. The image can be changed by altering mathematical equations or values. Below are a few examples of my fractal art. I enjoy it because I can create a piece in much less time than my colored pencil art which takes hours or days. I hope you enjoy a few of my creations!
Sandi Dornhecker Art 