Creating a Seigaha Motif with ggplot2

Seigaiha 青海波 🌊

The Seigaiha (青海波) motif, literally translated as “blue ocean waves” is a classic Japanese pattern used in textiles, ceramics, kimono and art. It features stylized waves created with concentric circles forming arches. I just learned that it symbolizes surges of good luck - delightful and thought great start to have it for blog post.

青 = Blue
海 = Ocean
波 = Wave

Using ggplot2 and additional packages like ggforce and cowplot, I was able to recreate this timeless design programmatically.

Walk Through of How I Created the Pattern

First need to load up the required libraries. Recently, I discovered package called annotater , which let you add annotation to the packages you use in script! It’s such a useful tool - future me (and anyone collaborating on my code) will likely thank me for using it.

Code

library(tidyverse) # Easily Install and Load the 'Tidyverse' 
library(ggforce) # Accelerating 'ggplot2'   
library(cowplot) # Streamlined Plot Theme and Plot Annotations for 'ggplot2'  
library(gt) # Easily Create Presentation-Ready Display Tables 

col10 <- str_split("012a4a-013a63-01497c-014f86-2a6f97-2c7da0-468faf-61a5c2-89c2d9-a9d6e5","-")

col10_pal <-str_c("#",col10 |> unlist())

Generating the Grid Data

We create a grid of coordinates to serve as the base for our motif. To archieve the characteristic offset of Seigaiha waves, we adjust the x coordinates for odd rows:

Code

df <- expand_grid(x = seq(-16, 16, by = 2), 
                  y = seq(-10, 10, by = 1)) |>
  arrange(y,x) |>
  mutate(y_odd=(y%%2==1)) |>
  mutate(idx=row_number()-1) |>
  mutate(x=if_else(y_odd,x+1,x))

Expanding for Circle Sizes

The radii of the circles vary in five steps. It could be smaller or larger. I could’ve also add randomness to it too, but I just kept it constant for now.

Code

r_values <- seq(0.3,1.1,length.out=5)
df_long <- df |> expand_grid(r=r_values)


df_long <- df_long |>
  mutate(r_var=if_else(idx%%5==0,sqrt(r),r))

#range(df_long$x)
#range(df_long$y)

df_long |> head() |> gt()

x	y	y_odd	idx	r	r_var
-16	-10	FALSE	0	0.3	0.5477226
-16	-10	FALSE	0	0.5	0.7071068
-16	-10	FALSE	0	0.7	0.8366600
-16	-10	FALSE	0	0.9	0.9486833
-16	-10	FALSE	0	1.1	1.0488088
-14	-10	FALSE	1	0.3	0.3000000

Plotting the Seigaiha Motif

Using geom_circle from ggforce, we layer circles over the grid. We map the fill colour to the adjusted radius (r_var) for a slight gradeient effect:

Code

df_long |>
  arrange(-y, idx, desc(r)) |>
  ggplot() +
  geom_circle(
    aes(
      x0 = x,
      y0 = y,
      r = r,
      fill = r_var ## just wanted to give bit of variance
    ),
    linewidth = 0.1,
    color = "#fffff3de",
    linetype = 3
  ) +
  coord_fixed(clip = "on",
              xlim = c(-15, 14.5),
              ylim = c(-9, 9)) +
  theme_nothing() +
  scale_fill_gradientn(colors = col10_pal) +
  scale_color_gradientn(colors = col10_pal)

Final Touch

The theme_nothing() from cowplot removes all unnecessary visual elements (axes, labels etc.), leaving only the motif. I’ve adjusted xlim and ylim so that I’m clipping out the extra circles.