Photo courtesy of lowerawr22(@flickr.com) - granted under creative commons licence – attribution

Tessellation What do you notice?

Photo courtesy of Mathew Reames, aitoff, Dmharvey, OpenClipart-Vectors (@flickr/pixabay.com) - granted under creative commons licence – attribution

Tessellation

Tessellations are created when shapes are repeated again and again with no gaps or overlapping.

Photo courtesy of OpenClipart-Vectors(@pixabay.com) - granted under creative commons licence – attribution

You could watch two short clips about tessellation here. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zjv39j6/articles/zgxwfcw https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/clips/zthsb9q

Can you spot any tessellations in your house or when you are outside?

M.C.Escher

M.C.Esher or Maurits Cornelis Escher was born in 1898 and died in 1972. He was from the Netherlands. Escher didn’t do very well at school but he was a very talented artist.

Photo courtesy of Hans Peters (ANEFO)(@wikicommons.com) - granted under creative commons licence – attribution

M.C.Escher

Whilst visiting the Alhambra in Spain, he became fascinated by the mathematical designs and patterns that he saw there. He was inspired to produce his own tessellations.

Did you know?

As well as being a graphic artist, he was an illustrator, designed murals and even postage stamps!

Photo courtesy of Sharon_k, Christine and Hagen Graf, Rolf Kleef(@flickr.com) - granted under creative commons licence – attribution

Here are some of Escher’s tessellating artworks.

Which of these shapes do you think tessellate?

Look at the next page to see the answers.

These shapes tessellate.

Create your own tessellation You can make your own tessellating pattern. 1. Make yourself a template out of card by drawing a shape that

tessellates onto the card using a ruler if you have one. Cut out your template.

2. Take a piece of white paper and put your template in the middle of it to begin. Draw round it.

3. Now move the template to the right or left, top or bottom of your design. Make sure it fits perfectly without any gaps or overlapping and then draw round it.

4. Continue filling the whole sheet with your design. 5. When you’ve finished it you can colour it in. Two colours work well.

If you want to try a more complicated design, have a look at the ‘How to make a tessellating template’ pdf. You will need an adult to help you. Why not try to make your tessellating pattern look like Escher’s by adding faces and animal features.