Mags and I have known each other for a while now, having initially met on another site, then discovered one another here!

She has been creating beautiful fractal art for quite some time, and got a DD for the very first one she uploaded here at dA.

Interview with

1. How long have you been doing digital art, and fractals in particular?

I started using Photoshop about 10 years’ ago to do posters and business cards for my musician husband. I realised you could use Photoshop for a lot more than just editing photographs and started to create some digital art with it, spheres and abstracts mostly, Then about two-and-a-half year’s ago I saw some fractals on another website and instantly knew I had to find out how to do them.


2. What got you started?

The idea that I could express myself artistically without being able to draw or paint! I’m rubbish at traditional art. I used to work as an administrator for an art group whose members kept telling me that what I did wasn’t proper art because it was done on a computer. However, they were quite happy to paint a copy of a photograph – technically very clever but artistic – I don’t think so! Art comes from within and it doesn’t matter what tools you use to express it. I was delighted to find I could use the computer as a means of showing people my ideas.


3. Do you have any formal training either as a traditional artist or in digital art?

I’ve had no formal training in any art form other than 3 years at school about a million years’ ago! I think I’m quite glad about that really!


4. What software do you normally use?

Ultrafractal and Apophysis for fractals and Photoshop Elements for pretty much everything else. I’ve dabbled with Terragen, Bryce and Chaoscope amongst others but never really got very far.

5. Do you have a preference for the type of picture or fractal you like to create?

Not really – if a new style comes along in Apophysis I like to have a go at it – so a new challenge is always the current favourite! I’ll always love spheres and spirals, but generally speaking it’s just whatever takes my fancy at the time.


6. Can you give a brief overview of your technique?

Very brief! I just tweak things till they look right whatever programme I’m using. I rarely start with a preconceived idea of what I’m going to make, I just like to experiment and see what happens.


7. What sort of things inspire your artwork?

Other people’s artwork, certain colour combinations, occasionally song words or something I’ve read, shapes and textures in nature – all sorts of things.


8. Do you have any advice for aspiring artists and fractalists?

Learn to be patient! Never consider a piece of art to be finished – especially in UF! I go back to my images many times and add little bits of texture, or change colours and merge modes, or even change the main shape - and usually see something I like better than before. With Apophysis, keep on tweaking, just little bits at a time, and then try lots of different gradients – the right gradient can make such a difference to a flame. Think about balance in your picture – are the proportions pleasing, are you cutting anything off at the edge – sometimes moving it up or down or left or right just a little bit makes a lot of difference. Think about contrasting opposites – light and shade, smoothness and texture, angles and curves. Above all, keep experimenting with everything – you always have the undo button if you don’t like what you’ve done.

9. Do you have any future plans for diversifying your artwork?

Not that I know of, although I would love to be able to create things in Poser – likes dragons and fairies – that I could perhaps combine with my fractals in some way. I have a picture on my website of a magician with fractals coming out of his wand and swirling all around him – I’d love to have been able to make that wizard myself but had to get someone else to do it for me.


10. Is there anything else you'd like to add about what you do? (Feel free to give links etc. where appropriate!)

Only that I get enormous pleasure from what I do, both from a personal point of view and from the fact that other people seem to like it too. Many people have helped and encouraged me over the years and I’m very grateful to each and every one of them.

Also, thank you for asking me to do this interview – it’s made me think a lot about my art and made me realise again just how much it means to me.

Here are some Features of her works that particularly appeal to me

And here is the fractal that won her a DD!