The Fibonacci Sequence in nature & in art

If you look at the red line I have rather shakily added to the painting, you can hopefully see what I mean by using the Fibonacci Sequence and Golden Ratio which I explain below

I think the composition in this painting is particularly pleasing (to me, at least, & to the people who bought it!) & which I think is evident without any underlying explanation: it just makes you feel good to look at it.

The Fibonacci sequence, where each number is the sum of the two preceding ones (e.g., 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8), appears in various natural patterns, including the arrangement of leaves, branches, and seeds, as well as in the number of petals on flowers and spirals in seed heads and pinecones. 

The nautilus shell is another excellent example, with its spiral following the Fibonacci sequence.

This mathematical arrangement is always very pleasing to the eye, and for this reason it is used in architecture and in art, together with the Golden Ratio. Artists recognise that that the Fibonacci Spiral is an aesthetically pleasing principle: the Rule of Thirds ( or Golden Ratio). This is used in the composition of a painting by balancing the features of an image by thirds, rather than strictly centring them, causing a more pleasing flow to the picture. This also explains why all - or at least, most I hope(!) - of my paintings satisfy my ultimate underlying aim of making the viewer “feel good”.

In fact, I only discovered I had been doing this intuitively until comparatively recently, when I started researching the meaning of the Fibonacci Sequence in bromeliads and pineapples, two of my favourite subjects - as well as my unconscious avoidance of symmetry in composition. I try to never place the subject of a painting in the centre of the canvas or paper, even when painting pet portraits.