Birds on Abstract Art

Realistic birds on abstract Modern art background.

I want to design a group of images with realistic arts and abstract arts mingled together. 

I drew a group of birds in flat color with Adobe Illustrator, and try to put them on different styles of abstract Modern Arts. 

Dove on Cubism style art

Imagine a bird flies in a big city. One minute it stands on a curb at street level, next minute it lands on a building rooftop. The bird's viewpoints keep changing. 

Using multiple vantage points to depict a scene is one of the major characteristics of Cubism art. For my series of Birds on Abstract Art, I think it's a perfect match between a city dove and Cubism style art. I particularly use Juan Gris (1887-1927)'s paintings as my references.

Robin on Kandinsky style art

American robin is one of our favorite songbirds. Robins not only call, but sing (Check The Cornell Lab website for robin's musical songs). 

The songs of robin remind me of Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)'s abstract arts. Among Modern abstract painters, Kandinsky is famous for linking his works with music. 

Cardinal on Mondrian style art

Male Northern cardinal is unique in its bright red body color. The almost pure primary color reminds me of Piet Mondrian (1872-1944). 

Of course Mondrian's Neo-Plasticism art has a set of strict rules, including use only straight lines, only horizontal and vertical lines, only primary colors and white, black, and gray.  

When I do this piece, I explored the ways of bending these rules while still maintaining the "Mondrian-ness". 

Sparrow on Matisse cutout style art

House Sparrow is quite plain with its muted color. But it's a common sight in cities and very lively. I put a sparrow in contrast with Henri Matisse (1869-1954) style cut-out arts, which is very colorful.

A piece of PCB art

Raspberry on Printed Circuit Board: 

My first piece of PCB art

Raspberry is no ordinary fruit, thanks to the marvelous little devices called Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi is a series of single-board computers, with no monitors and no hard drives. In eyes of a non-tech person like me, they are mainly pieces of small electrical circuit boards, and they have a splendid logo. (See their Instagram) 

Hence, the fruit raspberry has a strong association with circuit boards, at least in my mind. 

Printed Circuit Boards, or PCB, are not only vital parts for electronics, but also inspirations for artworks. 

The photo I took a few years ago of an old dial-up modem.
I'm still struck with the visual beauty of its circuit board.

I've always wanted to do a design emulating PCB. For my first try, I decided to put a raspberry on it.

For this work, I have two major decisions to make: 1) which visual elements do I "borrow" from printed circuit boards? 2) how abstract or realistic do I draw my raspberry? 

A more abstract representation of raspberry.

There are all type of PCBs, with all sorts of colors and different levels of complexity. PCBs also keep evolving. For example on older PCBs the capacitors are cylinders extruding from the base while on newer ones they are just tiny blocks lying on the boards. 

For my design, I want to keep the whole image simple, so I just integrated a few visual elements of PCB. I also stick with the color green since green is the conventional color associated with PCBs. As for the raspberry, after several attempts, I decided to put a very realistic fruit image on the chip instead of more abstract ones. 

Here is my design of "Raspberry on Board", my first piece of PCB art. 

"PCB Art" is a relatively new term. It has been used in two ways: 1, refers to art elements on actually functioning circuit boards, and 2, refers to artworks inspired by PCB, which have no functions other than being artworks. My design belongs to the later group of course. 

As a graphic designer, my focus is always on the visual. I even look for inspiration from William Morris's fabric patterns. I shall call my design "PCB art, just art". 

Green-themed design

 I designed 4 green-themed images. 

That is, the 4 designs about concepts of sustainability: circular economy, renewable energy, additive manufacturing, and microgrid. 

Circular economy 

This economic model prioritizes recycling, reusing, and repurposing, with the goal of reducing consumption while sustaining economic activities. It’s a transformative approach to how we produce, consume, and dispose of products.
In traditional linear economy model, people take, make, use, and dispose of items. I'd say that the linear model is quite abusive. While in the circular economy model, people pay more attention to the environment. I'd say this model has more love in it.

Renewable Energy 

Though renewable energy sources are by no means limited to solar and wind powers, these two types are best-known, also most visible. So I designed the image resembling sun and wind turbine for this concept. 

Additive Manufacturing (AM) 

This term may sound strange. A much more popular name for additive manufacturing is 3D Printing. This emerging technology greatly reduces the production waste, makes manufacturing more sustainable. My design is depicting a 3D printer nozzle printing with filament.  

Microgrids 

It's basically micro power grids. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) calls it Microgrids.  They are small-scale, localized energy systems.

These decentralized, local energy grids are transforming the way we power communities. The facilities can connect to or disconnect from the main power grid as desired, thus benefit the local renewable power production and paving the way towards energy independence.

My design shows the essential parts of microgrids, which are power source and connection controls.