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!
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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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
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
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
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
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
This Mountain Biker #tessellation drawing was done before Windows 3.1, before the Mac, before iPads! But after the dinosaurs. 1997. It was the inspiration to do a complete periodic drawing covering the plane, rather than a line group as shown below. Sometimes these drawings take time. Tessellation ideas are a dime a dozen — completed artwork is more rare. Continue reading
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
Yet another tessellation about #cellphonezombies! Contemporary topic. This tessellation seen from a low wide-angle view, we can see a truck’s tire coming from behind our character, and above the roadway disappearing far behind him. Yes, busy, mesmerized by his cellphone, oblivious. What a weird word. Oublie-vie-ah. Forget-your-life. Continue reading
Just in time for tonight’s episode of Marketplace on CBC.ca — “Addicted to Your Cellphone?” A third tessellation, this one in symmetry group P6, one 6 point, one 3 point and one 2 point rotation. Tiny feet for the sidewalk and dangerous street crossings. Big bulging eyes from staring at the screen for too long. Continue reading
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
I will be showing some tessellation prints at the Board Game House in Nanaimo, for the next two months. Hanging of the artwork is October 28, 2017 – the show concludes at the end of December. Come see. Widen your perception of the fine line between art and math. Stretch your imagination with a bit of geometry, symmetry. Humor and funny characters too. Continue reading
Tessellations by Francine Champagne 