Maurits Srl created a video to explain the technical side of the seventeen symmetry groups. Three of my tessellations appear in there, dealing with three of these symmetry systems. Not my best work, but enjoy!
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Category Archives: Techniques
#Zentangle #Cadent as a #tessellation
Having fun with a few Zentangle patterns. This one is called #Cadent. A simple grid of circles is all that is needed to get going with this pattern. If you are drawing it by hand, link identical S curves between all the dots in a cascading chain of repetition, then rotate 90 degrees and repeat in this new direction.
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Pentagonal Derivative #Tessellations
Pentagon grids
Pentagonal Derivative #Tessellations: just a short fancy way of saying that I used a grid built up of pentagons to come up with these two designs. It was quite a blast and a struggle last year (it’s not yet a complete project) to re-create all of the ways that a surface (plane) can be equally divided using pentagons. Continue reading
Quickie Louis Cube #Tessellation
Sometimes just a quick tessellation exercise is required to limber up the creative force. A favourite one is Louis Cubes. This pattern was created with KaleidoPaint and Pixelmator, both, great apps on a tablet.
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Re-Creating M.C. Escher’s Lizard #Tessellation
M.C. Escher’s Lizards are by far the most popular of Escher’s tessellations. It can be seen gracing many multitudes of surfaces, legally or illegally. From tattoos, puzzles, belt buckles, car wraps, flooring or landscaping stones… My initial introduction to tessellations was through redrawing this lizard in its nested shape during a class on crystallography at Carleton U. That was a few decades ago, in 1988. But, as I keep on repeating (no pun), to draw a tessellation or to truly understand the structure behind it are two different things.
Pentagonal tiling #tessellations, Part 3
Apprenticeship
Most of us learn the easy/best way. Look at the masters, follow their path and learn all that we can from them. Replicate their artwork. It is a long process, especially without any direction or assistance from a teacher. This is where I’m at right now — copying / learning from the pentagon symmetry system seekers: Reinhardt, Kershner, James, Rice, Stein, Mann, McLoud, and Von Derau. As I did for a while, copying M.C. Escher’s tessellations, decades ago, although I no longer need MCE inspiration to create a tessellation. Continue reading
M.C. Escher movie out soon, April 12, 2018
Directed by Robin Lutz, an 85 minute documentary about M.C. Escher. Could be interesting! Keep you posted. Coming out April 12, 2018. Watch the trailer.
Create a Nested Shape #Tessellation in any Symmetry Group
Create your own tessellation
This list is to help you get started in creating your own nested shape tessellations. I’m not showing you how to create wallpaper patterns with lots of free space in between, but the true, à la M.C. Escher designs. A tessellation of a flat surface is the tiling of a plane using one or more fluid shapes, called tiles, with no overlaps and no gaps. Continue reading
Pentagonal tiling #tessellations, Part 2
My Pentagon Challenge is keeping me busy. I am plowing my way through all of the pentagonal tiling types. Quite a few of them are built within either a perfect hexagon, or one that has been distorted beyond recognition. I am finding some interesting rules of symmetry I had not yet encountered. Wrapping my noggin around new concepts. Many of these symmetry types are skew-able, not only scale-able. Also, many of the anchor point for division lines inside hexagons are variable in their location, as long as the variable is kept constant for each pentagonal unit. Continue reading
M.C. Escher Shows for 2018 – 2019
Pentagonal tiling #tessellations, Part 1
Another challenge showing up on my desk, compliments of Woodpecker Carving. Hussein posted a beautiful Islamic geometric design, displaying the use of pentagons. But wait I thought, aren’t pentagons impossible to tile using the original seventeen symmetry groups? Or so I thought. I had seen intriguing examples of pentagonal tiles over the years, but I was still obsessed with M.C. Escher type nested shapes – and will always be. Continue reading
Dragons a Coming!
This one is going to take quite some time to complete. Stay tuned! It started off as an exercise in tessellating pentagons. Not an easy task. It took mathematicians over a 100 years to figure out all of the ways it could be accomplished. Good article about pentagons on the Quanta Magazine website, check it out. Continue reading
Carlos’ Thesis Dissertation on Symmetries
I was approached by a student a few months ago — he was writing his dissertation and needed examples to illustrate the seventeen symmetry groups: Continue reading
Symmetricks / Symétrucs & Tessellations
All this talk about sharing space between characters in a tessellation has made me think of the word “symétruc”, which I coined a few years ago in a discussion with Jeff Weeks, American mathematician and KaleidoPaint app programmer. My original intention was for a word better than the French “pavages”, or “dallages”, which to me aludes to floor tiles, patio stones or asphalt pavement, rather than graphic art. Tessellation can be used in French, I’ve since found out. Continue reading
Sharing areas within, and thoughts about, #tessellations
On the theme of ‘multiple sharing’ (as with ‘Mountain Biker’), are you familiar with the work of Raoul Raba in Zoo Mathématique? He has occasional examples. As a concept, there are not too many artists using this idea in their tessellation work. The premise of ‘economy’ is a pleasing one. Continue reading
Tessellations by Francine Champagne 