Combinations of Twelve Silhouettes from Twelve Flower Pictures

This book collects twelve flower photographs that were circulating on the internet (mainly Pinterest and Instagram) and, with the assistance of Adobe CC Illustrator 2025’s automated Image Trace function (with slight modifications), transforms them into twelve flower silhouettes.

These silhouettes are arranged on a 114 × 164 mm format, structured into three layers, and assigned patterns that allow overlapping to be displayed. Through a mechanically simple process of combination, 220 superimposed graphic images are produced, and the book documents both the process and the results.

1. Twelve Flower Pictures
I collected random flower pictures from the internet. (These appear on the book's back cover.)

2. Twelve Silhouettes
The previously collected bitmap images are converted into vector graphic silhouettes using Image Trace — with my intention somewhat intervening in the parameter values — according to specified criteria. The twelve silhouettes are placed on the 114 x 164 mm format base and tagged from (a) to (l).

3. Combinations of the Twelve Silhouettes
The twelve silhouettes are grouped into sets of three. Three patterns are applied to reveal overlapping areas between silhouettes, mechanically combining them within a predefined layout. This process generates a total of 220 combined result images.

Afterword
The powerful image-making method of ‘collection-extraction-combination’ that forms the backbone of this project is one of the most useful methodologies I learned in college. Applying this method allows one to generate new images regardless of the starting material. Even considering the methods of collection, extraction, and combination individually, numerous variations are possible, and the number of ways to combine these methods is also infinite.¹ Therefore, no matter how narrowly one defines the scope of the source material, the variations of this project are effectively infinite.