'Flame # 149' is one of a series in which all members were created by the same process. It works something like this. The form of each image is derived from an iterated function system. I have parameterized a portion of the space of functions from the plane to the plane, so choosing a form is reduced to choosing these parameters. I explore the parameter space looking for good shapes using an interactive program. Function space is vast, but even the small portion my program handles yields a large variety of shapes. I have now collected about 170 shapes, each a pont in a continuous high-dimensional space.
The coloration is derived from scanned images, either a natural photograph or a painting. The image is filtered and sampled, then an annealing process finds a linear ordering of colors that minimizes the length of the path through color space. Colors are used to suggest or contradict particular interpretations of the shape.
Because function space is continuous, interpolation between shapes is quite easy. I am currently working on animations and more sophisticated interactive programs that do this.