August '78

August 78
As the title of this image implies, the original painting from which this graphic is derived, was completed in 1978. In fact it was the first painting I made as an artefact rather than as decoration.
 
At that time, it was designed to illustrate both the variable colour arrangements and the distortions that could be applied to a simple Islamic pattern (see design No 6). In these endeavours I was obviously influenced by both Escher and Vasarely in the use of, respectively, the fish-eye lens and the perpendicular colour gradations.
 
I chose this to be one of my first digital re-creations of paintings because of the thrill I experienced in discovering the lens effect in CorelDraw 8. What had taken me weeks of painstaking calculation and drawing 20 years ago can now be achieved by the simple click of a button (though I have yet to discover how to manipulate the negative fish-eye applied to the squares effectively).
 
In re-creating this image I had recourse to my original notes which reminded me that I had been deeply disatisfied with the use of burnt umber tints for the crosses and so in this graphic I have altered them to blue. For those who have never seen the original I can assure you that this version is the more effective.

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