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  • Author Author: fmilburn
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PCB Art:  The Great Wave off Kanagawa

fmilburn

Instead of doing what I should be doing I have been thinking about what kind of art works best for PCBs.  The PCB has a limited number of colors that can be used and also limited resolution.  This leads me to think that wood blocks, posters, and things of that nature might be good candidates.

 

One of my favorites is a color woodblock by the Japanese artist Hokusai called The Great Wave off Kanagawa published around 1829 to 1833.  It is part of a series titled Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji.  It came to mind because of the current Project14 contest on Photonics and of course the famous wave-particle duality of light.  In the artwork the wave seems to transition to particles.  The tips of the waves have a fractal quality.  At least that is the way I see it :-).  Below is the original and my conversion for placing on a PCB.

 

{gallery} Conversion of Great Wave off Kanagawa to PCB

image

Original

image

Converted for PCB

 

The color palette was developed for OSHPark purple.  The conversion looks OK but really needs another shade or two to pick up the clouds on the horizon and the striations in the waves.  The print has more detail than The Scream  which I posted earlier.  After working about 3 hours I trashed my first attempt and started over.  It took about 6 hours to complete the conversion shown above.  Much of the detail was done by hand because the automatic tools in Photoshop weren't really up to the job.  Or maybe I am not adept enough with the tools.  There are still some parts of the conversion I am not happy with.

 

Bonus!  Here is another print from the series, Dawn at Isawa, that looked like it might be easier.

 

{gallery} Dawn at Isawa

image

Original

image

Conversion for PCB

I don't like this one as well - the palette is too limited and doesn't match the original artwork as well.  It took about two hours to complete.  I find it relaxing however.  It is kind of like painting by numbers but only having 5 paints and they are the wrong color.

 

For now I don't plan to have these made into PCBs but will hold them in reserve for the future when I might want to make them into working circuits.  Thanks for reading, comments are always welcome.

Parents

  • It is clever Frank.  I’ve always thought that the waves had a fractal quality about them but never heard anyone else say that.  It seems like a shame to stick components on the top of them - I think simpler the better so that as parts of the image get obscured it is still recognisable, so your wave makes more sense to me.  I’m racking my brains for something suitable: iconic album covers perhaps.  Dark Side of the Moon??

  • in reply to Andrew J

    Hi Andrew,

     

    I hadn’t thought of album covers but those would be good inspiration.  Copyright protection is potentially an issue with newer stuff of course.   Dark Side of the Moon is a favorite of mine both cover and music and it fits the photonic theme also if that is a goal.  Alas, it has all the colors though.  I have been googling what others are doing with PCB art though and some are hand coloring, eg badges.  People either make the electronic components part of the art or hide them on the back as I did with The Scream.  Fun stuff.

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  • in reply to Andrew J

    Hi Andrew,

     

    I hadn’t thought of album covers but those would be good inspiration.  Copyright protection is potentially an issue with newer stuff of course.   Dark Side of the Moon is a favorite of mine both cover and music and it fits the photonic theme also if that is a goal.  Alas, it has all the colors though.  I have been googling what others are doing with PCB art though and some are hand coloring, eg badges.  People either make the electronic components part of the art or hide them on the back as I did with The Scream.  Fun stuff.

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