Conceptual Project

My design really takes advantage of the mathematics of this project.  It is actually just a collaboration of simple linear functions.  If this were to be recreated the instructions would be as follows:

Use the following graphs:

1.     x+1.5

2.     –x

3.     -6x+30

4.     .2x-2

5.     4x+11

6.     .2x+5

7.     -.5x-8

8.     2x-8

9.     11+x

10. .5x+10

For all of the graphs you will draw the ones that are increasing will be in green and the ones that are decreasing will be in green.   The red lines will always act as somewhat of a background and will not ever overlap the colored double lines.  When the double lines cross, the intersections of like colors will be filled in with that color and intersections involving two colors will be filled in red.   On the graph paper, two squares are equal to one.   The origin is the middle of the paper.On the first page graph numbers two through ten in red and number one in green as a double line.  On the next piece of paper graph numbers three through ten in red, leave number one as it was originally graphed and graph number two in blue as a double line.   For the next one graph four through ten in red, numbers one and two as they were on the previous page and then graph number three in blue as a double line.  Continue this process until all ten are graphed as double lines. 

  A quick lesson on drawing graphs:

 All of the graphs in this project are simple and easy to draw without using a calculator.  They are all in the form mx+b where m is the slope and b is the y intercept.  For example, for graph number one, x+1.5, the slope is one, which means for every coordinate you move up you move one coordinate to the right.  And the y intercept is 1.5 so you start at y=1.5.  If there is a negative slope, for example -.5x-8, for every one coordinate you move to the left you move .5 coordinates down and you begin at y=-8. 

One of the neat things about this design is that it can easily be tampered with to give it an entirely different look.  For example if all the negative slopes are changed to positive and all the positive slopes are changed to negative, the graph will be flipped upside down.  Also, if the y-intercept for all of the graphs are changed to zero  it will look somewhat like a starburst coming out of the center.  Slopes and y-intercepts can be changed and it could be fun to just mess around with all the graphs to make it look completely different.

I chose to do my conceptual project like this because I always thought that graphs looked neat when they were all together.  I started by making more complicated graphs, for example ones that looked like flowers and spirals, but they were quiet difficult to replicate and would have been impossible to draw without using a calculator. 

While drawing the multiple lines I kept thinking that it kind of represented some of Sol Lewitt’s work.  In particular his large pieces that just look like a bunch of random lines going every which way.  If my design were done on a much larger scale and a lot more graphs were added I think it would look a lot like his work.