Imagine this scenario: You've roamed the galleries of DeviantArt, and discovered the Fractal Gallery. You poke about, intruiged by this odd new artform you just discovered. Soon, you discover a stunning piece that blows you away with how awesome it is. You must comment. You must. Even though it has a fairly "empty" corner that bugs you and the colors could be just a little better.

But once the fractal's fullview loads, you're suddenly lost for words. How do you tell the artist who made this piece that while they've done a great job, there are some things that could be done better? It's a bit daunting, especially for someone who might not understand a fractal beyond this very broad of definitions: "An image of repeating forms created by mathematical equations."

Many people out there, I am sure, would love to say more about a fractal they like, or at least notice enough to give a critique that's more than just one sentence. However, they somehow feel lost for words, and settle on "Wow, nice work." I'm also sure a lot of you out there would like to say more. Even if it's just another sentence to your comment.

I was one of them.

Then I realized there was a way to comment on fractals.

Fractal work, at its finest, is artwork. Fractals manipulated the way we see on DA are more than just products of a casual push-and-click experiment. The same way as daubs of pigmented liquids make up a beautiful painting, or the way the casting of light and shadow on a piece of film creates a photograph, a fractal is an image created in its particular medium.

Being an image is the one thing that unites all pieces of art on this website. A picture of Naruto is an image. An oil painting of a bowl of fruit is an image. A design for an album CD cover is an image. All images still have those fundamental signs of artistic expression: color, light, darkness, contrast, mood, composition, use of space, focal points, and so on.

With that in mind, anyone can learn to critique a fractal, and do it in a way that helps the artist who made it. Remember, fractals are still images.

When I figured this out, I found I could definitely say more about a fractal than just "Wow, cool" and not sound completely out of my element. You can too, and it's not as hard as it seems. Once you understand the basics of critiquing, you can move on to learning about the more technical aspects of a fractal, and how to critique them. *one-tough-one's article will address the technical aspects of fractals and how to spot details you can critique in them. Becuase his experience goes beyond mine with the various fractal programs, I will let him address how to critique a fractal's technical details.

We're going to focus on the artistic aspects, and how they can help you help the fractal artist improve their work. But first, let's learn to walk before we can run.


The Basics


The basics are pretty simple.

I'm going to assume everyone has at least this basic understanding: An image can be made up of any number of things, and these things can be named, and talked about.

Light. Darkness. Color. Contrast. Depth. Composition. Contrast. Shapes. Focal Point(s). Movement. Depth.

These are probably the easiest parts of art critique for people to understand, becuase they don't take too much explaining, and can be fairly easy to grasp, as well as comment on.


Light and darkness is the most obvious feature. Thus, it is the first one this article discusses. How light, or how dark is this fractal? Is it so bright that you have trouble picking out any details, or is it just light enough to pull off a "soft" or "illuminated" feel? Is it dark to the point that you can't see anything, or is it just dark enough for parts of the fractal to stand out and catch your attention? These are things anyone can notice, and if it bothers you, then it may well be an issue worth mentioning. Or if it is done in a way you like, you can always tell the fractal artist that they did a good job with these aspects of their image.


Color is another big one. Are the colors bright and vibrant, or are they soft and muted? Color can convey a wide range of things--everything from mood to an implied temperature. In fact, there's more range to color than there is scope available for this article.

Here are a few things you can take note of in a fractal: Cool colors like green, blue, and purple, can be soothing, or convey a sense of sadness. Warm colors like red, orange, and yellow can be energizing, or be used to convey a sense of heat. For example, I have seen and made many fractals that convey the sense of heat entirely with the use of fiery colors. They can be pretty effective. Another good use of color is to trigger a certain feeling. For example, a fluffy-looking fractal tinted a shade of pink can evoke memories of cotton candy or spring flowers--both of which are pleasant things to think about. I can go on, but you get the idea.


Contrast is what lets us tell parts of an image apart from each other, and uses the two themes listed above. Do parts of a fractal stand out against one another, or are they all blended easily together? The easiest form of contrast to identify is the use of just black, and just white, in an image. The two extremes together will make things in either black, or white, stand out very boldly.

Contrast in color is another thing. It's best explained through the use of color theory. Most of you remember the color wheel. Imagine (or draw if you want) a circle with a triangle in it. Put red at the bottom tip, yellow on the upper left, and blue to the upper right. Overlap another triangle with green between blue and yellow at the top, orange between red and yellow at the 7 o'clock position, and purple at the 5 o'clock position. Keep this image in mind as you read on. Notice how Red is opposite of Green, and Orange is opposite of Blue. That's the core of color contrast theory. Red, a warm color, is in direct contrast to the cool color green. When an image uses red and green together, the parts carrying each color will stand out against each other. This goes on for the other colors as well. On the other end, colors that are next to one another in this wheel.

Then, in reverse, colors that are next to one another on the wheel are said to be analogous. They will go well with one another, and usually won't clash in an image. Green and blue are going to go very easily with one another, and perhaps make up a fairly soothing pair in an image. Red and yellow are next to one another, and thus don't really clash either. But against blue and green, red and yellow will most definitely stand out. I recently made a fractal that was entirely made of blue, green, and hints of purple color. It was a very soothing piece to look at, becuase I picked those cool colors that were all next to one another on the color wheel. To this day, I consider it probably one of the most soothing fractals I have ever made.


Color can also imply a sense of three-dimensional depth. It's a generally held artistic idea that warm colors appear to be coming forward towards the viewer, while cool colors can be seen as moving away from the viewer. These can be effective in creating a sense of three-dimensionality when your image is only a two-dimensional one. Another way to imply depth is simply to have a range of colors. Think of a black and white photograph, and the range of gray tones that encompass the spectrum between solid black, and solid white. When an image uses a range of colors--both light to dark--it can be said to have depth of color. But it also provides a sense of three-dimensionality, "depth" in general. Depth may seem more like a branch of the earlier topics, but becuase it is key to the three-dimensional feel some artists impart to their images, it is its own topic of critique.


Shapes are another very noticeable feature. Does a fractal have a lot of any one shape? Does that appeal to you when considered with its overall mood? Or could it look better with circles when it has too many squares? Sometimes a fractal with a lot of right angles or squares can seem to look very rigid or formal, and a few curves and smooth shapes could soften that up. Other times, you might see a fractal that seems to be nothing but smooth forms, and you feel it could use a few sharp edges to play off that for some visual "pop." Mentioning this can be a very helpful thing, as some fractal artists might be going after a certain feel--especially if you feel they missed the feel they were going after. If a viewer notices all the smooth curvy shapes makes them feel relaxed, and the artist was going for that relaxed feeling--it's a good thing! They used shapes wisely.


Movement may seem tricky to explain but it really isn't. Do parts of a fractal make you feel like it's going to move, or do they feel more like they are frozen in place? Does the piece feel energetic, or active, and why? Sometimes an artist needs to be reminded to create more of this feeling. Usually having things at a certain angle, like squares at 45-degree angles, or simply showing a swishy part of the fractal in an interesting way can help convey this.


The Bigger Picture

Now that we've covered the basics, let's move on to some of the fancier things that go a bit past the basic art classes. Most of what follows falls in the general field of Composition, which takes all that was mentioned above, and moves things to the next level in art critique:

Composition. Focal Points. Visual Movement.


How the parts of an image are arranged make up its composition. Are the shapes of a fractal arranged to keep your attention flowing around the page with, or do they draw you to one spot in particular? Does it have something on one side of the image and nothing anywhere else? How an image is arranged will greatly affect how viewers see it. A bubble positioned in dead center of an image is going to draw some attention to it, but moving it off to the left will grab more attention becuase it's what people call an "off-center" composition. An image can be composed as to create a focal point. What I've just explained are only the basics of composition, since a lot of things can be done in this area to draw one's attention about the picture, or make it hold at one area--a focal point.

Focal points are simply put, parts of an image that grabs your attention and keep it. They are a part of the image's composition, and are usually deliberately placed to draw your attention to them. An artist, even a fractal artist, will use many of the methods mentioned earlier--and then some--to create these focal points. The most basic focal point would be a black dot in the middle of a white sheet. You can't help noticing that dot, can you? No more than you can help noticing a large, highly detailed bubble in the lower right-hand corner of a fractal image.

When one has several focal points happening, they can create visual movement. Visual movement is simply the movement of a viewer's eyes when they roam around a picture. Usually the focal points are arranged compositionally to keep the viewer looking at all the various details in an image. Highly detailed fractals are particularly good examples of this method: a skilled fractal artist can allow the viewer to lock onto the largest features as a focal point, then let the details in the smaller parts of the image draw their eyes about to take it all in.


Some Fancier Stuff

All right, on to some more complicated art techniques that will help you critique a fractal--Negative/Positive Space, the Rule of Thirds, and Image Orientation.


There is another way to describe how a piece's composition affects you. How much empty or negative space surrounds the filled, or <ositive, area of a fractal can affect how you see it. Think back to the black-and-white contrast images I mentioned earlier. Black is often seen as "negative" space, and white as "positive." Such things are usually brough out by high contrast in an image. An Apophysis fractal itself usually is seen as positive space, with their typically black backgrounds are viewed as negative. Some fractals made in this or other programs such as Ultra Fractal can simply have no clearly defined positive or negative space--they simply fill the image.


Then there is the Rule of Thirds. It's normally used in photography but can apply to any image if an artist wants to use it. Print a picture. Take a pen or pencil and draw a 3 by 3 grid on it. Look at where the image's elements are in its composition, and where in the grid they fall. If a focal point is in the upper third or the bottom third, it will grab one's attention very strongly. The same can be said for the left third or the right third: putting it in a "third" is the gist of this Rule. SOmetimes an artist can use a placement between two squares as a way of pulling one's attention to that part of the piece. While I don't usually mention this in my critiques, sometimes it does stand out on an almost subsconscious level as how a focal point works as well as it does for me.


Image orientation is another aspect of critiquing a fractal. If you had the freedom to hang a large print of the fractal you're looking at, which way on the wall would you hang it? Sideways (landscape) or upright (portrait)? Some fractals, even if the artist has tried their best to make it a "tall" image, might be better suited in the horizontal format. Sometimes I have seen some that felt like they could be made into taller, or wider (like widescreen format) images. While this may not seem like something from the "fancy stuff", it cannot be missed. Sometimes I have seen an image that simply looked like the artist could have cut it off and just needed to let the frame extend upwards a little. This falls into the areas of both composition and orientation--composition simply in the placement of parts in the image, and orientation in that the image may need to be widened to encompass more of the fractal, or perhaps less of it if a detail is too distracting to the viewer's eye.


To Sum It All Up

Now you have quite a few art critique ideas under your belt for when you view a fractal again. I hope this will encourage you to say more to the artist, and to help them see what might be bothering you about their images. Perhaps you have seen something you knew you wanted to bring up with the fractal artist, but you simply didn't have the words to explain why. I hope I have given you a critiquing vocabulary that will help you to better understand fractals as art, and as images.

If you would like to learn more about the ins and outs of critiquing artwork, you can always look up Wikipedia, or similar websites. Also, libraries and other art websites should be a good resource as well. If you are an art major in college or university, at least one of your courses should cover aspects of critiquing artwork. If they don't, you might want to ask your professors to bring it up in class.

I hope I have given you a greater understanding of fractals from an artistic standpoint, and perhaps artwork in general. Keep an eye open for *one-tough-one's article on the more technical aspects of critiquing fractals. If you want to learn more about how to comment on a fractal's technical merits, his article is the place to look.