No. 16, 30 Day Challenge, Green Scots Pine Cone

Found some green pine cones last week....love the colour! Would have liked to paint it on the branch but yet again time was against me.  It was a fairly small subject which was quite a relief at this point in the challenge.  The pine cone, is an example of a Fibonacci sequence found in nature. Here being in two sets of spirals in the arrangement of the bracts, where one set goes in a clockwise direction and the other anticlockwise.

Green Pine cone and pine needles

 There's nothing magical about the number sequence, it's just the most efficient structure for growth. The Fibonacci number sequence is 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21 etc., up to 233, where each number is the sum of the previous two numbers, it was first described by Italian mathematician Leonardo Pisano Bigollo (1170 - 1250) This simple growth pattern results in the spiral patterns found here in the pine cone, also in pineapples, sunflower centres, many succulents and other plants. The cone  shown from the base in the image below shows the two spirals from their point of origin, in this case with 5 clockwise spirals and 8 anticlockwise spirals, in accordance with the Fibonacci numbers. Was a bit rushed to add the view from the base...could be better!   


 

Plus the view from the base, showing the two Fibonacci spirals

Colour:  First wash a mix of Indanthrene Blue and Transparent Yellow. There after a Mix of Perylene Green and Transparent Yellow to gradually build up colour. Shadows Indanthrene plus Winsor Violet, Centre of bracts Raw Umber.....and a little bit of that Manganese Blue Hue on the highlights.