Finding a direction for my data!

There is so much data around us, from obvious charts and graphs, to addresses in our address book and the finger prints on our fingers. I really wanted to chose a project theme that would push myself out of my comfort zone, and to give me and the people who view my work, some food for thought. I decided to look at the hidden data within colour, looking at how they mix together, and the colours that different colours are made up of.

I've started the project by looking at a well known method of separating the colours that make up different colours: chromatography. I have recorded the data from different brands of black marker pens and coloured felt tips. Below is a video which I created from taking pictures of my chromatography experiment involving the separation of 5 different coloured felt tips. I took a picture every ten seconds, for ten minutes, to see how the colours separated in various pens.

After doing a very simple experiment I tried to make my data look more interesting, and experiment with mixing colours, and patterns to see what the results were. Here are some of my most interesting results, created using different techniques.

I found it interesting to watch how my patterns and pictures distorted when in water, and I have learnt a lot about chromatography. For example, the more ink you have, the slower the water travels, but when there is no colour in the way, water travels quicker. This is what created the bumps and lumps on the line where the water stopped.