It would be nearly impossible for the average person to recreate a Rafael Araujo drawing. The Venezuelan artist’s work is exacting in the most literal sense. The good news is, you’ll never have to. He's done the work for you.
The artist, whom we’ve written about before, recently launched a Kickstarter to fund a coloring book that lets the less artistic among us add our personal touches to his mathematically illustrated seashells, butterflies, and flowers. The Golden Ratio Coloring Book is a series of 20 Araujo drawings reprinted in black and white. True to its name, Araujo’s illustrations explore the complex geometries found in the natural world, like Fibonacci spirals, tessellations, and of course the golden ratios. "Most of the images were designed exclusively for this book, since my original artworks were indeed too complicated or intricate," he says.
Araujo crafts each drawing on a drafting table, using a compass, protractor, and pencil to sketch the outline. Every drawing is like a math problem that can take up to 100 hours to create. He begins by drawing a lightly-drawn rectangle or square, which acts as the scaffolding upon which he bases his measurements. Araujo doesn’t hide his process. Rather, he embraces it, leaving the scaffolding lines and measurements in place to show how he arrived at the final form.
Typically, Araujo finishes his illustrations with acrylic paint, which he believes highlights the complexity and beauty of their geometries. For his coloring book, the colors are removed so that others can choose how they’d like to finish the illustrations. Araujo’s outlines aren’t simple. This isn’t a coloring book for your toddler. But he’s already done the hard part for you---you just have to fill it in.
