July 2025

MakerSpace Spotlight

Art Supplies

As part of the 'Color our World' Summer Reading Challenge theme, the MakerSpace has added even more art supplies to our collection. Here is what we have currently:

• Graphite Drawing pencil sets
• Charcoal (Willow, compressed, and pencils)
• Conte
• Pastels (Oil and Chalk)
• Watercolor & Gouche
• Artist Markers (water and alcohol-based)
• Crayons
• Colored Pencils (artist quality as well)
• Paint Markers
• Acrylic Paint
• Ink Pens & India Ink
• Erasers
• Blending tools
• Fabric Markers
• Sketchbook paper

Contact the MakerSpace for 1-on-1 help and questions about using our art supplies. The supplies are available to use on a first-come, first-served basis during open make times or by appointment.

Triangles Make Art

After reading Love Triangle: How Trigonometry Shapes the World by Matt Parker, I've come to realize not only do triangles make up a lot of the world, but they also have a big part in art. 3D models are created using triangle coordinates to tell the computer how to make the shape you are creating. At the same time, perspective, an important art concept, can be understood using calculations involving triangles. Artists might not realize it, but they are using math and its concepts when creating art, whether it be digital or physical.

Artist Leon Battista Alberti is credited with discovering how to paint with perspective using the vanishing point to make his paintings look more realistic. He would put a dot on a horizon and use a straight edge to draw perspective lines that he could use to plan and accomplish paintings that mimic real life. This discovery was shared and used by many artists beginning in the 1400s, and then in the 1600s, the use of multiple vanishing points was discovered. Using more than one vanishing point makes it so that no matter where you look at that artwork, it will look realistic. Single vanishing point artworks only work if you are looking at them from the correct angle. In more modern art, understanding these concepts of vanishing points and perspective has allowed artists to break the rules and create illusions of their own.

Other modern art forms, such as movies, use triangles to accomplish special effects. Ray tracing is a huge part of VFX that uses geometry to calculate the light paths that would go into the camera lens. Using these calculations can determine what the pixel color should be based on what surfaces the light path would have bounced off. Ray tracing means that the computer only has to calculate what will be seen on a frame and not calculate all the possible trillions of triangles created in a space. Basically, this program makes it easier to create special effects and reduce rendering time. Video games also use VFX, and some even use trigonometry tables to make it easier for the computer to render graphics.

DOOM came out in 1995 and utilized this method of space saving since the Super Nintendo was not designed for 3D rendering. The game cartridge contained its own processor, but used the trig tables to allow the game to convert 3D coordinates of Doom into the 2D graphics that the SNES was able to run. This file was 145 kilobytes, which doesn't sound like much today, but was quite a bit back then, resulting in it being the 2nd largest file in the game system.

This is only some of what I learned about triangles in art and other applications. If you want to learn more about triangles and how they are a part of our everyday lives, you can check out Love Triangle: How Trigonometry Shapes the World through the library in both physical and digital.

References

Parker, M. (2024). Love triangle: How trigonometry shapes the world. Riverhead Books.