Filled with inspiration after having completed a course at Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) in Biomimicry: A Sustainable Design Methodology.
One week was spent looking for patterns in nature. Like the fractal nature of tree branching and antlers. Or spirals like galaxies, shells, pines cones and sunflower heads. After a while I started to see spirals everywhere.
Nature has inspired lots of artists, like the designs in the video below that brings spirals shapes into motion using strobe lighting and a spinning surface. If you count the number of spirals on any of these sculptures you will find that they are always Fibonacci numbers.
Fibonacci numbers: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144. . .
Blooms: Strobe-Animated Sculptures from Pier 9 on Vimeo.
We decided to explore spirals in our garden. We started by make a giant spiral pattern out of stones and flowers.
We picked a bunch of flowers and some purple broccoli with a stunning spiral pattern. inspired by nature we made some simple drawings ad filled the paper with live flowers.
The yellow button on daisies is filled with spirals, we used a magnifying glass to study the spirals and then we make a sketch.
The purple broccoli inspired this fantasy flower. A great way to make some spring flowers by just adding petals from spring flowers. Next time we go shopping we might buy some Romaneso broccoli, which has a fractal pattern.
These flowers drawings will hopefully help us get ideas for new exciting “innovations and designs”.
What ideas do you get when you look at spirals in nature?
Biomimicry for Young Children 