Are we ready for another creative brain gym session? These Pmg tessellations are built around one mirror, and two rotation points. There are also two indirectly implied glide reflections as a result mostly of the two way rotations.

“Blue Rinse with Handbag” below, illustrates the mirror glide concept quite well. She sort of looks like plastic Fossball figures, and even rotates along that metal bar at about the right spot, at the height of the handbag clasp. You could flip her around easily. There is another glide right through the forehead. Must have drawn this while subconsciously remembering a soccer commentator throw an unusual image at his GOLTV audience. Something along the lines of players being confronted on the pitch by a bunch of old ladies with handbags. Out in left field these UK commentators. I guess you could call this symmetry group the Fossball figure group!

Easy to see the mirror as it constructs both sides of the Lady in blue. Red and green dots show the two different 180 degree rotation points.

Have a look at Big Foot below, and you will see the same pattern emerge. Try locating the two-fold rotation points, and the mirror. If you click on the images themselves, you’ll get a bigger view.

The tessellation is accomplished by drawing a line away from a rotation point to the mirror, for each of the rotation points, R1 and R2. The red line and green lines below show a quick outline of a possible standing figure once you tweak the final blue line for the legs. Much fun with this symmetry group.

The possibilities are endless. Bird Brainiac below is another example of Symmetry group Pmg.

There are 17 methods to divide the two dimensional surface into tessellations. This is post seven. Ten more symmetry groups to go!

Lots of software out there to help you accomplish this type of design.

An iPad app is available, which is what I have used here to create these images: KaleidoPaint by Jeff Weeks.

There is also a java-based program “Escher Web Sketch”  at the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne. Make sure Java is enabled and not blocked by your security software.

Also, another screen-based software by Anselm Levskaya Escher Sketch v2. (I used to have a basic Mac-based software, way back in prehistory, 1995, by the same name. It worked on the cutesy first Mac)

Or a pair of scissors and a piece of cardboard works quite well. That’s how I learned.

Comments are always welcome!

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If you’re a “Learn by Seeing” “Learn by Doing” kind of person, I’ve started creating videos on “how-to” create tessellations. I’ll be covering each of the 17 symmetry groups, one class at a time. And like all artists, we need to make a living. So. I’ve uploaded these to the Skillshare platform. I’ll get paid by minutes watched.

You can take the classes for free. Skillshare offers anywhere from 2 weeks to a month for free if you sign up, even temporarily.

You can register for just a month and cancel anytime. It’s less than the cost of a Netflix subscription! And you can still stay put on the couch. There are over 40,000 classes on topics for creative persons just like you. Join my mailing list, either here on my blog (in the sidebar), or a at this link for a specific list I use to announce new classes.

I’d love for you to join me on this wonderful learning adventure.

If you prefer, you can follow my progress on social media, I always announce my new class:
Facebook: Franc Champagne, and Vancouver Island Tessellation Artist
Instagram: champagne.francine
Twitter: FChampagne1
Linkedin: Graphic Design, PowerPoint and tessellations
Youtube: Video animations and class intros

My classes have received an independent rating of 9.7/10, placing these Skillshare classes in the TOP 2% of classes reviewed by CourseMarks!

🙂

Here is a list of the classes up so far:

1. Rekindle your Love of M.C. Escher Tessellations, draw your own tessellations using a free iPad App. In this class I introduce the concept of tessellations, show you the work of M.C. Escher as well as other artists. Then we dive into a first symmetry method, P4g, accomplished by drawing only one line to create the perimeter of your tessellation.
2. Just like M. C. Escher’s Tessellations: Draw Using a New Symmetry Method and Your iPad. We tackle the Mirrored Triplets symmetry group, aka P3m1.
3. This UP/DOWN, LEFT/RIGHT Tessellation method was M. C. Escher’s favorite. It is also the symmetry method, P1, most taught in schools. Probably the only way most artists have tried to accomplish a nested shape. We will push it a tad farther, but also easier than scissors and cardboard.
4. M. C. Escher Tessellations: The Three Cozy Buddies Symmetry Group, know as symmetry group P3. Lots of examples, from many different tessellation artists. One of my favorite ways of creating tessellations.
5. Digital Patterns: Super Simple Quickie Patterns. 20 patterns in 30 minutes! I will show you how to draw and assemble your pattern design elements in four different and unusual ways. Come explore the possibilities, from a different point of view using your iPad and the free KaleidoPaint app. There is more to symmetry than rigid repeats, half-drops and tossed layouts.
6. My next class with deal with a symmetry group I have named: “This way — that way”, aka crystallographic notation Pg. That Koloman Moser video above, is part of the series.

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