BN FAVES: THE NATURE, ART & SCIENCE OF DOODLES

Here’s one of our BN Team’s Favorite Arts Design Daily Fix posts!

Doodles are unconscious or absent-minded drawings. They flow out of their creators without specific intended direction… or rather the intention evolves as the image evolves.

Today we are exploring doodles created by animals and plants, as well as brilliant doodles, by Nobel Laureates and math and science teachers that help us understand our natural world.

How does nature doodle?

Doodles often play out in patterns, as well as expanded organic and geometric shapes.

British mathematician Alan Turing proposed a hypothesis, in 1952, about how naturally occurring patterns, such as stripes and spots on animal fur, could have developed from a random group of cells.

Turing’s figured that these patterns form based on cellular interactions and molecular signals occurring in the organism, which led to his Turing Theory of Morphology.

Recently, scientists at Brandeis University delved into Turings theory and devised an experiment, using identical cells, which contained interacting chemicals that passed between them. The researchers found that Turing’s theory accurately predicted six patterns, while a seventh remained a mystery.

JONATHAN MCABE

Australian artist and designer Jonathan McCabe turned Turing’s theory into art. He used the cell “doodles” as a base but reproduced them in pixels. Each pixel is assigned a random mathematical value and a color.

McCabe applies an algorithm that mimics the response of cells interactions, which begin as randoms, then progress to form patterns. They end up looking like psychedelic doodles of mitochondria and other simple organisms.

Watch this fantastic video to see how McCabe’s digital doodles evolve.

LISA LISPETT

Lisa Lispett, of Ecopsychology, sees doodles in nature all around her. Leaves and tree bark doodled upon by insects and fungi, are just a few examples. Ivy doodles up a wall. She finds the spontaneous quality of natural doodles and human doodles to be inspiring.

“Each time we create with no plan, we spark a powerful shift to feeling, intuition and sensation that puts us in intimate relationship with self and Earth” explains Lispett.

VI HART

Doodling is a creative process. It’s also a learning process. As we doodle, our minds expand. As we visualize, we understand better.

Vi-Hart, of Khan Academy, created a truly wonderful video series, entitled “Doodling in Math,” which illustrates the phenomena of spirals and Fibonacci sequences in nature.

These doodles show the math in the way plants develop leaves, branch out, coil up and unfurl. The first Doodling in Math video discusses three types of spirals, from tight to loose, found in pinecones, succulents, snails, etc.

The second Doodling in Math video looks at how plants grow out, in relation to their leaves. While the third Doodling in Math video delves deeper into Fibonacci and lucas numbers.

CHARLES DARWIN’S CHILDREN

Charles Darwin doodled and sketched beautifully as he developed his theory of evolution. But he wasn’t the only one. His children had a passion for it too -- so much so that they doodled their little hearts out all over Darwin’s manuscript for the Origin of Species.

No one knows which of Darwin’s ten children created these doodles.

CARL SAGAN

Doodles helped 8-year old Carl Sagan to explore paths that would lead to his future as a scientist. The doodles are now part of the Seth MacFarlane Collection of Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan Archive at the Library of Congress.

Read more about Beautiful Favorites, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including BN Faves: New Pages of Beautiful Green, BN Faves: Mind-Blowing Recyclers, and BN Faves: Exquisite Flower Feasts.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by Jonathan McCabe. Cellular Doodle.
2. Image: by Jonathan McCabe. Cellular Doodle.
3. Image: by Jonathan McCabe. Cellular Doodle.
4. Image: by Jonathan McCabe. Cellular Doodle.
5. Image: by Jonathan McCabe. Cellular Doodle.
6. Image: by Jonathan McCabe. Cellular Doodle.
7. Image: by Jonathan McCabe. Cellular Doodle.
8. Image: by Lisa Lispett. Naturally occurring doodle.  
9. Image: Courtesy of Vi Hart. Still from Doodling in Math.
10. Image: Courtesy of Vi Hart. Still from Doodling in Math.
11. Image: Courtesy of Vi Hart. Still from Doodling in Math.
12. Image: Courtesy of Cambridge University Library. Painting by Darwin’s children in On the Origins of Species.
13. Image: Courtesy of Cambridge University Library. Painting by Darwin’s children in On the Origins of Species.
14. Image: Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Sketch by Carl Sagan.
15. Image: by Jonathan McCabe. Cellular Doodle.
16. Image: by Jonathan McCabe. 20120222a.
17. Image: by BN App - Download now!
18. Image: by Jonathan McCabe. e_0075.