Geometric Basics for Absolute Beginners by an Absolute Beginner

In earlier civilizations, science (math in particular), religion, and art were not separate. We don't even have a word for the broad and fluid field they formed together, but we can get a feel for it by gazing at any of the many astounding works of geometric art which have survived till now, and are usually part of a sacred structure.
Geometry is nothing but numbers made visible. In fact it is the very first manifestation of numbers, well before shorthand symbols-1,2,3-were created for them. Early geometers understood the relationships between numbers by looking at the way geometric shapes related to each other, and as numbers were deeply meaningful, so were the patterns emerging from them charged with meaning. The two-dimensional, abstract nature of geometry was understood as being one step closer to the zero-dimensional, unknowable Divine than our physical world, and its beauty was quite literally out of this world.
The fascination with geometry and mathematical patterns is reemerging today: we can see it in the growing popularity of fractal art. There is no need, however, for special software to create highly complex geometric designs, and it is in fact deeply satisfying, even meditative, to slowly draw them out of the white nothingness of a sheet of paper, as I am going to do in these tutorials.