Mother Nature has perfected the design, size, shape, colours, and look & feel of all biolog
ical entities. They have been designed most effectively by keeping in mind, its role on earth and its survival. It is not a surprise to see designers, architects and engineers taking cues from nature when they set out to create buildings, trains, prosthetics, robots and fashionable accessories. An activity of taking inspiration from nature, understanding the design principles of nature and adopt them for product designs is called ‘Bio Mimicry’. For an example, fastest bullet train’s design is inspired by a Kingfisher bird with a long beak which cuts through the air and catches up the speed.
Being a Zentangle artist (An art with intricate designs), I also thought of taking design and colour inspiration from nature and apply it. Doing so, I thought of coming up with new and innovative and totally new designs which are not explored yet by any of the zentangle artist. My eyes started looking for intricate design details of nature to be converted into a repetitive zentangle pattern.
One day, while browsing through social media, a picture of a Dragonfly posted by my friend grabbed my attention. This picture was shot with a very good camera, revealing all the intricate design of a Dragonfly. I instantly connected with it and identified 2 intricate designs fro
m its wings to be adopted for zentangle designs. The same day, over 4 hours of continuous work, I managed to make one small piece of Bio-mimicry Art inspired from the design on Dragonfly’s wings. I also developed a 3-step process for myself which I’ve termed as ‘i-cube’- Inspire, Intricate and Integrate. Step 1 is to get inspiration from nature for art designs, step 2 is to identify intricate designs of that natural entity and step 3 is to integrate that design in to piece of art. I also took the similar colours and their combinations.
It gave me not only a sense of happiness and confidence but also took my work a notch up by bringing innovation in art designs. I am definitely planning to make many more bio-mimicry art pieces inspired by Nature’s designs and keep the innovative spirit alive.
Contributed by: Dhwani Swaminarayan
