“Several Circles” https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/1992
When scanning through the endless pictures, I stumbled across this one and was inspired to create it in Processing. Circles are really interesting because they have so many mathematical purposes and the hard part about them, is that it is nearly impossible for a human to draw a perfect circle. Looking at this picture made me think of space and the infinite possibilities for the make-up of objects out in space(meaning that I am sure there are a plethora of objects out there that are in-fact translucent over the standard “opaque”). I was inspired to try and recreate something I would never be able to re-create by hand, but I could do a decent job at attempting to recreate with the aid of a computer.
With the help of processing, I wanted to be able to learn how to place objects on the canvas and how changing the values in turn placed the characteristics of the shape. Artistically, I struggled with creating the essence of the “glow” behind the main circle. I tried a couple of different approaches. First, I tried to blur the edges of the larger circle, but the problem was that I could not find a good balance between the circle’s main color and the starkly lighter glow on the background. When I did the blurring technique, it produced more of a “spectrum” rather than a stark contrast that is shown in the painting – resembling an ellipse.
The other technique that I tried was using the same lines of code to make the large circle, I created a circle slightly bigger than the original and changed the color to the lighter scheme. This technique is displayed below and worked better than the original plan.
Above is what I finished with. I think that overall, my code was clunky and that there are probably more efficient ways to write it which I will learn over time. Processing was an excellent tool for this particular piece due to its geometric nature. Having a mathematical program that allows for math functions and the ability to manipulate mathematical shapes which are then output according to your specifications is a really efficient tool to use when you are trying to do something either precisely or for the most part, mathematical. I would not enjoying trying to draw a face or a more realistic object in this program.