Fractals and Clip Art

I have long collected sample clip art from Dover Publications (http://store.doverpublications.com/index.html), always intending to make use of these images at some time. With the advent of Ultra Fractal 5 (http://www.ultrafractal.com/), in 2008, using some of these samples in fractal art became not only possible, but quite easy.

One of the first Dover samples I used was a blue butterfly in a simple fractal image.

I was quite excited by all the possibilities.

Ultra Fractal 5 proved to be something of a challenge because it offered several new and complex capabilities that required study and practice.

A couple of days ago, I downloaded an image from Dover, which can be found in their publication WHAT TO DOODLE? MANGA! (http://store.doverpublications.com/0486482901.html).

The blank slate kimono seemed like the perfect place for a fractal design, but in order to do this, it was necessary to create two images with transparent backgrounds. Normally I would use Paint Shop Pro X4, but I am finding what used to be the easiest of graphics programs to use, to be less and less useful. I am of the opinion that Corel bought PSP from JASC to eliminate competition with their own graphics packages, and, although, they continue to come out with new versions, PSP gets buggier with each new iteration.

I used Adobe's Photoshop Elements 10 to eliminate the text and white background surrounding the Manga girl, and saved it, with transparency, as a PNG file.

In order to add design only to the kimono, it was necessary to create a second image, minus head, hands, feet, and that bit of hair over the collar of the kimono. Get out the eraser tool.

This second image, also saved as a transparent PNG file, is used as a mask with the fractal design layer.

Once I had my Manga girl completed, I added background and framing, to have a finished looking image.

MadUF5_0374

I also added a color adjustment layer to make the face, hands, and feet look a bit less stark.

In the Footsteps of Tom Sawyer

I don’t sleep very well. It is a fact of my life. The things that keep me up are varied, but last night, it was an image I created in Ultra Fractal more than four years ago. It is an image I call “Painted on a Fence.” I was thinking about some recent financial changes in my life, and how I might best compensate for them, when the image popped into my head.

It is primitive in many ways, but it is also one of my creations that seems to fall more in the realm of realism than in that of abstract. Granted, the last time I looked there was no blue moon in the sky… or is that a blue sun? Hmmm. Anyway, it is flowers and ferns that could very well be painted on a piece of wood. To me, that’s real enough.

You may ask yourself what this image may have to do with Tom Sawyer. I guess as I lay there trying to fall asleep the whole fence painting pointed me to old Tom and his enterprising ways.

I would truly like to make my digital art into a paying proposition. I have become fairly proficient with making fractal flowers and flowery images. To wit, an updated version of “Painted on a Fence” not so cleverly named “Painted on a Fence UF5 Redux.”

Same picture, better image. I was able to use the image import facility to add flowers I created in UF5 and rendered as png with transparency, in place of the Orbit Trap flowers in the original. I think with this kind of flexibility, there has to be a market out there for my stuff.

You can find 42 of my flowers, some fairly real looking, others totally whimsical, on Rendersity (www.renderosity.com) in Free Stuff. I believe you will need to be a member of the site to actually download these files. The ZIP contains the fractal file, which can be modified as you see fit, a preview image in jpg format, and a render in png format. You need Ultra Fractal 5 to open the fractal file. It uses features introduced in version 5, so you won't be able to open it in earlier versions. There are no restrictions on the use of these images. They may be used for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

As of now, there will be no more free flowers because I have a lead on selling some of my fractal art. We’ll see where that leads.

I started this entry back in January and finally finished it!

Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest 2011

 

Contest : http://www.fractalartcontests.com/2011/

Honorary Presidency

• Michael Barnsley
• Aliette Mandelbrot

Panel

• Don Archer
• Javier Barrallo
• Cory Ench
• Damien Jones
• David Makin
• Kerry Mitchell
• Samuel Monnier
• Paul Nylander
• Joseph Presley
• Jonathan Wolfe

Orbit Trap… the Blog

I just tried to post a comment to Orbit Trap: The Blog that Drove the Universe out of Town (http://orbittrap.blogspot.com/2009/06/blog-that-drove-universe-out-of-town.html) the purports to be a blog for the 'discussion' of fractal art. My comment didn't go through because I'm "not a member of the team" and comments are "restricted to "team members."

Didn't they do that on SNL? Fractals are neither art nor mathematics... talk amongst yourselves

When I Think of Carlson, I Think Color!

It's been a long time since I sat down to write something here, almost 6 months.

Lately I have been exploring the vibrant colors associated with Carlson fractals. In fact, it was Paul Carlson's program, Mind-Boggling Fractals that got me interested in creating fractal art in the first place. I had dabbled a bit with Ultra Fractal 2, and actually owned Ultra Fractal 3, when my mind was first boggled by the shiny metallics of the MBF sample images. I had to have that software. (For more information on this program see http://www.nahee.com/Software/MBF/. Although it is no longer supported, and website is gone, you can still find it for download from the web.

The image above is a single layer in Ultra Fractal 5 made with the formula Big Brew Julia (tma2.ufm) and using the Carlson Orbit Traps Coloring (kcc3.ucl) with the trap parameters set to Curl and First Iteration and the Default color preset. These are the colors that got me hooked on fractals.

Where is this all going? Ultra Fractal gradients, of course! I decided that there had to be a way to get those zingy colors into any image, so I proceeded to the tedious, but rewarding, task, of copying each of the colors from Carlson Orbit Traps palettes and pasting them at each control point in a gradient. I discovered that this process is truly a 'by the numbers' project so I had to first come up with gradient templates for the 8, 12 and 16 color palettes. It seemed to me that to get the color and shine I desired, it was necessary to evenly space the control points in the gradient. A quick look at the various Carlson pallets in the coloring shows that there is a high and low range for each color, which means that the Default palette of 8 high and low color ranges requires 16 control points in the palette.

You have to know that I do not write this blog from a mathematical point of view. Math and I are on somewhat good speaking terms, but, when it comes to fractals, I'm all about the graphics and not about the formulas that are at their heart. Sometimes I may not use all the right terminology, and sometimes I may not use the words  I pick up here and there correctly. If you come across an error in my descriptions, please feel free to leave a comment so I can fix things up.

If you look at Carlson Orbit Traps, you will find a section called Color Settings with a drop down that allows you to select a preset and an ‘x’ box to allow you to see the colors in that default. Here are the color palette and the gradient I created from it:

 

So let’s take a look at what the same Big Brew Julia looks like without Carlson Orbit Traps, and my gradient:

Now I can go from this starting point and use any coloring and still start with a colorful gradient of my choosing.

There is a school of thought that one should craft a gradient for each image starting out with just 2 control points – one black and one while. I find that I don’t usually see the possibilities in a formula and coloring combination from that starting point. I most often go the route of starting with a random gradient that strikes my fancy and going from there. The problem with this is that after a while, the random gradients Ultra Fractal generates all start looking alike.

If you look at my gallery on Renderosity (http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?username=graphicMADness) you will see that many of my images tend to be dark; I’m trying to change that. So often when I am aiming for vibrant, I end up with dark. To that end, here is a piece on which I was working earlier that uses a gradient derived from the Carlson Orbit Traps palette Evening Sky 8.

As a footnote to the length of time between posts, I would like to add that the online Blogger editor is not easy to use when uploading multiple images. Since there are alternative methods to doing whatever you want to do on a computer, I turned to Google to find an editor that would work offline and publish to my blog. This entry was composed using Windows Live Writer 2011, which I downloaded earlier from http://explore.live.com/windows-live-writer?os=other. It seems to do everything I need it to do.

Fridge Art

Fractals afford us elaborate, abstract designs that are filled with spirals and large splashes of color. Today I set out to create a bit of reality with Ultra Fractal; the best I could do was something a child might bring home from school for display on the fridge. You will note the big yellow sun and the centered tree of flowers. Oh well, perhaps it's not art, but at least I had fun.

'tis the season

I want to share my 2010 Christmas card with everyone who reads my blog. I know I don't post nearly often enough, so dear readers of the sporadic, this is for you.

May you find peace and happiness during this holiday season and always.