Tagged: color

Part of the Impressionist World Map, showing Europe, the Middle East, Northern Africa, the Atlantic Ocean and parts of the Americas

5. April 2024

An Impressionistic Worldmap

Create a fresh and innovative artwork for the “impressionism” collection! That call/suggestion/recommendation I received at the beginning of March in an email from Art Heroes, the platform my webshop is connected to. I like that kind of challenge. And with my collection of world maps in mind, an impressionistic world map was a natural choice. But it wasn’t that easy, creating a map in the style of nineteenth-century French painters. New techniques First of all: what exactly is impressionism? The movement emerged around 1860, when young artists like Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, and Camille Pissarro began to experiment… Read More

Detail of a masonry relief with a world map, on which a part of Africa and adjacent oceans is visible

Cartography

7. February 2024

A World Map Made of Bricks

I have used many different materials to create world maps: from rusty steel to toilet paper and from stained glass to coffee beans. But a typical Dutch material was missing until now: brick. Time to fill that gap with a masonry relief. History The use of brick is not a recent phenomenon. The Mesopotamians used it five thousand years ago, as did the Romans a few millennia later. In the Netherlands, brick has been used as a building material since the thirteenth century. It’s not surprising that we have such a tradition of brick in this country. Apart from the… Read More

World map in rainbow colors based on the elevations on our planet

Cartography

7. December 2022

A World Map in Rainbow Colors

The rainbow world map I present in this blog post is a direct result of the World Cup in Qatar. A tournament that quickly degenerated into a statement contest. That was of course mainly the fault of Fifa, which banned “political” expressions such as the OneLove band under penalty of a yellow card. And of the organizing committee that banned every piece of textile with rainbow colors from the stadiums. Rainbow flags It’s quite logical that rainbows have always appealed to people’s imagination. It is a beautiful yet harmless natural phenomenon that is also somewhat rare and fleeting. Over the… Read More

close-up of a digitally created stained glass world map, featuring Europe, North Africa, the Mediterranan and the North Atlantic

Cartography

4. September 2019

A Stained Glass World Map

It’s certainly not the first time I make a world map, but I’ve never made one in stained glass. Our planet played a part in the virtual stained glass window that I made of the famous Earthrise photo, but that is not the same. So it was about time to fill this gap in my collection. And here’s the result! Virtual glass The map is made of 1440 pieces of colored glass. Virtual glass, of course, because this artwork was made entirely with the help of Photoshop and a tiny bit of Autocad. Despite the abstraction, the elements that make… Read More

A World Block Map, in colors that are realistic, albeit somewhat exagerated

Cartography

16. July 2018

The Block World Map Is Here At Last

Yes, my name, Blok, means Block. In fact, the family name was Block until one of my ancestors moved to Rotterdam in the late 18th century and a lazy municipality official dropped the c. In that light it’s amazing that it took so long for me to make a map using blocks. But here it finally is: a Block World Map. Grid The map consists of three grids, which are placed on top of each other. The largest blocks form a grid of 72 by 36; the attentive reader realizes immediately that each block corresponds to five degrees latitude and… Read More

Wall with 35 ceramic tiles with kaleidoscopic patterns in spring colors

Digital art

1. July 2018

Springtime in Kaleidoscopia: Mandalas and Milky Ways

Half a year ago I wrote about my first visit to Kaleidoscopia. That magic kingdom where ordinary photographs are transformed into colorful abstract patterns. Where leaves, flowers and other natural phenomena turn into geometric artworks. A few weeks ago I returned to Kaleidoscopia. But while I first used photos of fallen leaves and other autumn scenes, I now submitted pictures of blossom, young leaves and similar springtime scenes to my kaleidoscopic Photoshop actions. The result: 35 new kaleidoscopies, collected below on a tiled wall. And if you think it’s a quilt: be my guest. The question is of course: do… Read More

World map mirrored in a reflective and slightly undulating water surface

Cartography

11. March 2018

The World in a Water Mirror

The Dutch word for water level is waterspiegel, which literally translates as water mirror. Such a great word! Because under the right circumstances – not too many waves, but certainly not too few – water gets magical reflective properties, distorting objects until they are barely recognizable. Ideally, the waves create a kind of impressionistic oil painting that can only be captured with fast shutter speeds. Reflectifications I wrote earlier about the reflections of Rotterdam buildings in the old harbor basins. Here is another interpretation of the idea: a water level world map. 3ds Max How do you create a water… Read More

49 multicolored kaleidoscopic patterns like tiles on a wall

Digital art

11. January 2018

Mining beauty in Kaleidoscopia

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a tutorial about creating kaleidoscopic patterns on Digital Photography School. On that same day there was a lecture about symmetry by Robbert Dijkgraaf, director of Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies, on Dutch TV (it’s in Dutch, but very visual, so you may enjoy it even if you don’t understand a word) Can that be a coincidence? Yes, I guess it can. But it sure is remarkable Photoshop To briefly summarize the tutorial: by copying, mirroring and rotating images in Photoshop and by using the Lighten blending mode you can fabricate wonderful symmetrical kaleidoscopic… Read More

Detail of the Color Map of Rotterdam cropped at the city center with all city blocks drawn in a random color

Cartography

23. December 2017

Christmas: a Festival of Light and Color

Christmas is in the grayest and darkest part of the year. As far as nature is concerned, because with Christmas lights and decorations, that lack of light and color is generously compensated nowadays. In this blog post I present two maps that therefore fit very well with the Christmas season: the Light map and the Color map of Rotterdam. Solstice Christmas is the most important Christian holiday. But the origins of the festival date back to before the birth of Jesus. Both the Romans and the Germans did not let the winter solstice on 21 December pass by unnoticed. Understandably:… Read More

A freshly fallen leaf of a sweetgum tree, red with some yellow, in the grass in autumn

Photography

10. December 2017

Looking Back at the Photographic Autumn of 2017

When does autumn begin and end? The answer depends on whether you ask an astronomer or a meteorologist. Equinox and solstice The astronomical autumn begins with the autumn equinox, the moment that day and night, everywhere on Earth, have the same length. Autumn ends with the winter solstice, better known as the shortest day. In 2017, autumn officially started on 22 September at 20.01 Central European Time; the end is scheduled for December 21, 16.18. Because the length of a year on our planet (and actually on almost every other planet) is not an exact number of days, the times… Read More