Microcosmos, a new design from the Amsterdam studio BCXSY and the Brooklyn wallpaper company Calico, is kind of like a Rorschach test. It’s easy to get lost in the pattern–which launched during Milan Design Week–but hard to figure out exactly what you’re seeing. An up-close detail of a marble slab? Some sort of cellular sample? A watercolor painting? It’s really a blown-up print of bubbles.
Courtesy of a laborious technique, BCXSY found a way to preserve the ephemeral beauty of bubbles. The designers first filled a tray with a solution of soap, glycerine, and ink, then stuck a straw into the liquid and started blowing. Once the entire surface was covered in bubbles, they gently placed a piece of paper on top, creating an imprint.
After seeing the resulting pattern, they repeated the process using different recipes for their solution until they achieved the print they liked the most. Then, they scanned the image and adjusted the color to mimic the natural iridescence of soap bubbles–a digital process that took weeks. Finally, Calico digitally printed the pattern on its wallpaper.
Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!