"Goldflake" | Gallery: Motifs
I've been searching for a goldflake for some time now, actually. The colours weren't the problem... It was the shapes I could never get quite right... I wanted a gilded, ornate kinda of look... As though it had been meticulously hand-crafted by a master goldsmith. At last, this week, I found what I was looking for.
And I just realised something... Because this is a fractal, with real 3 dimensions, I could totally get this thing 3D printed! Maybe make it into a beautiful, big spinning top...
But that might be a bit too expensive for me right now... Especially if real gold were used ;P ... For now, I think I may just get it printed on expensive gliché paper and have it framed.
Goldflake
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Gallery: Motifs
Max. Print Size: 28" x 28"
“One day we took the children to see a goldsmith refine gold after the ancient manner of the East. He was sitting beside his little charcoal fire. ("He shall sit as a refiner"; the gold- or silversmith never leaves his crucible once it is on the fire.) In the red glow lay a common curved roof tile; another tile covered it like a lid. This was the crucible. In it was the medicine made of salt, tamarind fruit and burnt brick dust, and imbedded in it was the gold. The medicine does its appointed work on the gold, "then the fire eats it," and the goldsmith lifts the gold out with a pair of tongs, lets it cool, rubs it between his fingers, and if not satisfied puts it back again in fresh medicine. This time he blows the fire hotter than it was before, and each time he puts the gold into the crucible, the heat of the fire is increased; "it could not bear it so hot at first, but it can bear it now; what would have destroyed it then helps it now." "How do you know when the gold is purified?" we asked him, and he answered, "When I can see my face in it [the liquid gold in the crucible] then it is pure.”
-- Amy Carmichael, Gold Cord
“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
-- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
So like I said, I have been waiting to find these shapes for a long time. I thought of doing a "goldflake" right at the same time I did "Ashflake" more than twenty weeks ago. But other things always seemed to appear; things I just couldn't let go of. "Seaflake" actually came close to being a goldflake, but then I saw the fishies ;P
And indeed, it was the parameters of seaflake that I loaded this week in order to finally find gold ;) :
I first reset the parameters of all the formulae. It's always a good idea to do this, because every time you go down a fractal rabbit hole, you miss a thousand and one little side tunnels as you go down, so it's good to go back and try an alternative tunnel =) :
I was looking for shapes that reminded me a gilded gold flakes, and finally I found something (second image). In the third image, I just multiplied the number of "spokes" of the kaleidoscope formula:
After further multiplying of spokes, I got to work looking for that perfect mix of flakiness and variety of shapes:
After about an hour and a half of agonising and tweaking parameters, I finally got there:
Next came the colours. I had found this image a while back on Pixabay and had been dying to use it to make a gilded goldflake. Lots of gold, with plenty of darker shades for shadows and contrast. It felt good to finally use it:
Source: Pixabay.com
I used those spectacular hues to generate a few different useful versions in order to use them in layers in photoshop to get the perfect combinations of parts of the mandala that I liked:
I used a very simple technique of erasing parts of each layer, merging the two that I liked, then adding another image and erasing some more, with varying opacity.
And as usual, here is the details image. The original file is 7000 x 7000 pixels and can be printed to 28 x 28 inches.
As always, please tell me what you think. I make these once a week so you might want to go back through my blog and compare it to the others... Perhaps choose a favourite ^^
Remember too that all my designs are for sale. See my site, Mandelsage.com, for details =) ... And I am open to doing commissions too! How about a mandala based on your personality? ;)
Thank you for your upvote 💖
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A few recent posts of mine:
ULOG: Talking to My Future Self - 004 | Steem Monsters Elemental Sigils for Sale- Limited Editions | No Man's Sky | Diary of an Inter-Galactic Traveller - 003 - Base Computer?
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If you'd like to support me further, or follow me elsewhere, I'm on these social media:
Patreon | Instagram | Facebook
My Bitcoin wallet address:
1DPGX72eQj5TNVpSG1grRMxVAaDuqGG2RL
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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://mandelsage.vornix.blog/2018/09/04/goldflake-gallery-motifs/
awesomely cool, looks like a lot of hard work!! wow
Thank you! Yes, these can be difficult to get just right. This one was particularly time consuming but totally worth it =)
@mandelsage its amazing and yes your work is lovely
Holy cow, man... :-/ Those colors...
Thanks ;) ..
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Hello @mandelsage, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!