Trying to cram a character inside this tiny triangle, surrounded by mirrors is a pain in the keister. I have steered clear of this symmetry group for the simple reason that I’m not a fan of mirrors in tessellations. The only time I like mirrors is for the bilateral symmetry in a humanoid form. Those I’ve done lots. My latest love was Mr. Ruffles, a cutie from a few centuries ago. This time, I’ve managed to stuff “FIVE” of them in there!
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Chanced upon Keith Enevoldsen’s chart of symmetries a few months back. I find it very well illustrated to show all 17 plane symmetry groups. With his permission, I have reproduced it here.
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The video below has been a collaboration over three years and three artists: Carver Chouki Derrouiche of France; Videographer Brenikou, Macedonia East, Hellas, Greece; and me, Francine Champagne the tessellation Artist.
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This is the type of imagination you need for tessellations! To see the man in the moon. To see dogs and puffy sheep in the clouds. To see all sorts of people and animals in the outlines of countries. This is exactly what Zackabier has done in the video below: Europe according to creative people.
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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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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: 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
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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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.
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
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.
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
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
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
Tessellations by Francine Champagne 