The Mathematical Beauty of Nature in a Coloring Book

I think you already know that I am a huge lover of mathematics in art, especially when the pieces of art present the mathematical connections found in nature. Thus, I go extremely excited when I heard about this new project for a coloring book. I was always a big fan of coloring books even before they became popular nowadays. The project I want to talk about today is The Golden Ratio Coloring Book by Rafael Araujo.

Rafael Araujo is a Venezuelan architect and illustrator living in Caracas. For over 40 years he’s been drawing the most beautiful illustrations of nature, entirely by hand. At an old drafting table he adeptly renders the mathematical brilliance of nature with just a pencil, compass, ruler and protractor.

Araujo’s illustrations revolve around intelligent patterns of growth that are ruled by the Golden Ratio. This special number, commonly annotated with the Greek letter Phi (ϕ) can be seen in all sorts of natural spirals, sequences, and proportions. “Phyllotaxis” is the name given for the tendency of organic things to grow in spiral patterns and this number pattern reoccurs so often in nature that some researchers have deemed it a universal law for the perfection of structures, forms, and proportions. From sea shells, leaves, crystals, and even butterfly wings, Phi can be traced throughout our environment, time and time again.

The artist applies the Golden Ratio to his drawings and leaves the construction lines in the final images, which gives an incredible beautiful effect to the drawings. Each composition is painstakingly detailed: it can take up to 100 hours for the artist to complete a single one. He has started a funding campaign on Kickstarter with plenty of perks and suprises available to backers.

To give you a small taste of all his works, here are a couple of images:

Absolutely incredible, show it so love on Kickstarter if you like the idea.

Have a great weekend.  You can find me on Facebook,  Tumblr,  Google+,  Twitter,  Instagram  and  WeHeartIt. I will try to post there as often as possible.

Don’t forget that maths is everywhere! Enjoy! ~LThMath