Dog Daze Collection Mock-ups

Pattern designs can be applied to so many surfaces it boggles the mind. For this ensemble, the Dog Daze Collection, I’ve come up with quite a few mock-ups and continue getting ideas for more. The images below show quite a range of industries, from fabrics for dog beds, cushions and couches, rugs, doggie bandannas, t-shirts, boots and canvas sneakers, puzzles. The list is endless, have a look. Let me know if I’ve missed something that might be cool!

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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.

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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

All Seventeen Symmetry Groups Explained

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

Yes, another Dog #tessellation (taking a break from pentagons)

Dog Tessellation

There are three of them living under this ruff. They own the place. Yahoos when they are not gate guardians. Named this one Bibi, possibly for bierbelly. It is based in symmetry group P3 and the pentagons of Type 3, a hexagon split three ways. It’s a stretch from its original lines, but that is indeed where I started. Quite a simple tessellation with only a few lines. And a favourite tail twirl around a three-way rotation point – I’ve done that one quite a few times. 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

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

Cellphone Zombie 5, Just prior to impact, a tessellation by F.Champagne ©2017

Cellphone Zombie Tessellation #5 – Prior to Impact

This will be my last#cellphonezombie tessellation, I hope. Getting it out of my system. This tessellation is done using the P4g symmetry group – a four point rotation within a mirrored box. Don’t like mirrors in symmetry, it creates a very rigid personage. But in this case, it might suit the occasion, the last fraction of a second, before impact, as the cellphone user realizes that there is something going on in the world around him. Could be a sign post on the sidewalk, a bench, the curb, another zombie, a missing manhole cover (I did watch a lot of Bugs Bunny), a vehicle… you decide! Continue reading

Cellphone Zombies tessellation, Francine Champagne ©2017, tessellations.ca

Cellphone Zombie Tessellations #1 & #2

Seems #cellphonezombies  are in the news quite a bit these days. Either in remote areas, small villages or in the dense jungle of big cities (Honolulu), a new phenomenon, a dangerous practice, far worse than distracted driving, you have no seatbelt! Walking around while looking at their cellphone’s latest bleeps, people seem unable to just ignore their techno addiction and focus on the world around them. Continue reading