The story behind this particular piece ... I learned while on Steemit that it is very important to show at least three steps in the creation process of visual art, and to write at least 200 words. Now that I have time (owing to shelter-in place), I am applying on Hive what I learned about how this is to be done. As I was documenting the steps of this creation, the story came to me based on the shapes and textures I was encountering.
Fractal art is based on a portion of mathematics that we see every day but don't study in regular school -- fractal geometry, which is the math underlying the ability of Creation to generate items that are similar to each other. Consider a rose bush, for example ... how the plant copies itself, every portion not looking EXACTLY alike, but how each leaf, each thorn, each joint in the stem, and each flower and each petal of each flower is similar to the other in both their appearance and in their placement. A spiderweb is another example ... how the interaction of straight lines and circles in silk produce a unique pattern that is not identical, but similar as it scales up in size This is called self-similarity, and it is everywhere... embedded in the core of all life is the ability to build itself up in all its complexity by repeating -- or, iterating and re-iterating -- a small number of basic patterns. Once you start to see it, your view of the entire universe changes.
Now, think of what a paintbrush does -- it "iterates" the drawing of a single line with its quills, thus producing a brush stroke. A single motion of making a line into a bunch of self-similar lines creates texture, texture repeated as the painter adds stroke after stroke -- as iteration builds upon iteration.
Now imagine being a painter with two very strong arms and a lot of brushes... able to iterate a simple pattern thousands, millions, and even billions of times on a canvas of various shapes and textures. Owing to the wonders of computing, this can and is done in fractal art, which I got into not long after discovering fractal geometry. It IS time consuming, so I haven't had time before the shelter in place to really get off into it, but now, for now, I do...
Not all communities require as much showing of work, so the stories are shorter ... enjoy this one ... The Needle Harpies
Wow , that was more explanation than I was expecting, but marvelous! I will have to digest all of that for a while and see if it sinks in; my brain is feeling old today. Ha ha.
It took me YEARS, so don't feel slow. The easiest way to understand it: go look for it in the way flowers are made, and ferns unfold their fronds, and spiders weave their webs, and trees shoot out their branches and bud their leaves. Once you see it, you have it!