Saturday and a lesson with Pythagoras

I have been having art lessons for a little under a year and do not pretend I will ever be a master.  So while I have clever ideas it is still more difficult than I thought to put the them on paper.  It is more than being able to paint it is also a mathematical equation.  

This week for instance my teacher introduced me to  Abstract drawing and the methods of Peter Stanyer and Terry Rosenberg. I found a book since called Composition by Cyril Pearce published in 1927 for his students of Fine art here at Reading University.  After reading the chapter several times and get my head round the language and mathematical equations it would seem that ; ‘… the intersection of two diagonals of a pentagon gives the ratio geometrically, and some have supposed that the five pointed star which the disciples of Pythagoras wore was a symbol of their knowledge in such matters. Quite apart from speculation, such a division the ratio of 1 to 1.618 approximately, is to be found as one of the great proportions in almost every picture.’

So with that is mind I, with a ruler and a compass; not the three legged kind devised to secure the ‘golden’ measure between the two points (as discovered by Kepler).  I attempted to divide my paper as described by my teacher and with a hastened pray to Pythagoras.  Here are the results.

not yet complete and unseen by my teacher yet …. or Pythagoras for sure …  but a nice experience