Welcome to my Art Works Home Page

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Moorish architecture based on Replicated polygons. No longer available.

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Further designs using the Replication tool. No longer available.

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This section shows some of my earlier illustrations. They are all drawn using the fantastic and easy-to-use ArtWorks 2. A couple of the pictures have been embellished with a bitmap editor.

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Last year I held an exhibition in my library in Mansfield. I exhibited a variety of prints consisting mainly of vector graphic images created 'naturally' in ArtWorks 2 with some kaleidoscope pictures designed in Photodesk. Comments in the visitors book were very favourable to the extent I sold two limited-edition prints. I was surprised because the library staff were adamant that none would be sold. The Three Hares seemed to be the most popular image and is a personal favourite.

The picture of the fox was originally conceived from a tutorial written by a superb illustrator - Walter Briggs. The original article (Mammals Art Course - Fox Part 1) was published in Acorn Publisher (vol 9, issue 2). Creating an impression of animal fur is challenging in a vector package and may take some hours to perfect.

Some of the examples are tessellations. Once you understand the principals these unique and interesting patterns are very easy to create using ArtWorks 2. Last year I gave a talk at the Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club describing how to draw a simple shape by converting the sides of a square to curves and then creating a tessellation matrix.

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ArtWorks 2 is superb when it comes to creating geometric images. The moire designs started out with a radiating pattern which is then copied and overlayed over the original - some unusual effects are produced. My favourite graphic in this group is the serpent. Because of the knot pattern it has to be one of the more challenging drawings to produce but I hope you agree the final effect is worth the effort.

These graphic thumbnails are now displayed using CSS giving a much cleaner layout. (All I have to do now is to convert the rest of the site to CSS compatibility).

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An interesting collection of graphic geometry that displays the capability of ArtWorks. The sine curves and spirals are produced using the excellent DrawLots.

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The three images in this section show how some Adobe Illustrator tutorials can be converted and made to look quite realistic in ArtWorks. The examples are from the American site Vector tuts+.

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The selection of images here illustrate that virtually any outline or filled object(s) can be blended. DrawLots was used to create some of the starter objects.

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Martin Bazley's brilliant little utility - Cogs was used to create the designs illustrated in this section. This ingenious little program builds spirographs and is extremely simple to use.

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Cogs has been redesigned with a more advanced user interface permitting some very complex patterns.

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The graphic images here are all based on Pursuit Curves. Here's a simple analogy - a path inscribed when four dogs starting at each corner of a square pursue each other. Wikipedia shows a nice simple animated diagram of the path. The beauty of Pursuit Curves is that you don't have to understand the mathematics behind how they work. Once you have understood the simple drawing technique most of the illustrations shown here are quite easy to produce. Once you have drawn the basic shape - the spirals are formed by numerous repetitive operations (rotation and re-sizing) and are best done in a drawing package like ArtWorks. Pursuit curves can be applied to virtually any polygon.

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Martin Würthner has updated ArtWorks with what surely must be considered one of the best upgrades for years - the implementation of Artistic Lines. This new aid allows lines to have variable width dependent on a choice of profiles. One of the most significant aspects to this excellent feature is that these lines can be filled i.e. with Graduated fills and Hatch fills. Artistic Lines can also have an outline colour which can be set to any width. Control points and handles can be edited as with ordinary lines. Blends and transparency can be used to enhance profiles. Variable width outlines make this possible and allow far more interesting shapes to be employed in the artwork.

Have a look at the examples here. The frequently seen left-pointing hand shows how effective these profiles are - drawing the same thing with ordinary lines makes the graphic quite dull. The drawing of the princess is of particular interest as it contains a varied selection of profiles - ball gown top section.... Ripple, gold band.... Wave (long), dress pleats.... Ellipse. Instead of using traditional black to do the outline all colours are slightly darker than the colours assigned to each main picture element - for example... the lower part of the ball gown has cyan applied to the main part of it with corresponding outlines drawn in darker cyan. Common in this type of work the technique is very effective. The ellipse frame consists of Wave ribbon and the Ripple profiles.

Owing to the lack of tutorial material available to ArtWorks users I ran a series of articles enabling readers to convert some of the graphics produced by Xara in their regular 'Workbook' series. Available from Foundation RISCWorld magazine the first article started in the August 2008 CD (Volume 9, issue 2). If you missed the articles you can see the final graphic illustrations here........ Foundation RISCWorld Graphic Thumbnails. All the drawings have a copyright notice overlay and was going to be the subject of my next article in Foundation RISCWorld but as most of you know the editor, Aaron Timbrell has decided to give up the editorship of the publication. The final release (April 2009) is volume 9, issue 6.

Animation in ArtWorks 2

Introduction

Wikipedia has a nifty little animation that illustrates why Pi is such an odd number. I wanted to see if I could produce something similar in ArtWorks. Sure enough ArtWorks with its simple to use graphic user interface was perfect for the job.....

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Links checked Wednesday the 17th of October, 2012

New material added