Yet another interesting link

This series of lesson plans looks at the relationship between art and mathematics in pattern design. With sections on traditional non-European art styles, such as Islamic patterns and Indian Mandalas, as well as famous artists for whom pattern was a key part of their style, such as Escher and Klimt. There's also a section on the history of the use of pattern in art, which goes right up from Prehistoric cave paintings right up to modern art, which is very interesting, and pretty relevant for me as I'm thinking of using Egyptian styles again.

More Mathematical Patterns: Fractals

Fractals are complex, often chaotic, geometric shapes which divide into parts which are smaller-sized versions of the whole thing. In maths they are used to describe certain graphs and geometric principles, but they also make beautiful art. You can see them in nature in ferns

electrical discharges

and Romanesco broccoli, to name but a few

(images from http://www.miqel.com/fractals_math_patterns/visual-math-natural-fractals.html )

Examples llike the Koch Snowflake can be used to create beautiful tiled patterns like these from Mathworld

Another useful link

Looking at using different types of repeat to create different patterns with the same base image. This tutorial gives examples making some nifty pattern using nothing more elaborate than the letter P (images below taken from that website).
Basic block pattern

Half Drop

Reflections

Basic Rotations

And some rotations of different degrees

Rotations combined with reflections

A useful link

The Textile Blog is an excellent resource for images and thoughtful, fairly accurate articles on various famous textile designers. It's largely an art history based site, as far as I can tell, but it looks at some quite unusual subjects, such as lace design. There's lots on wallpapers, rugs, tapestries and suchlike which could be very useful for repeat pattern ideas.

Ways of making repeat patterns

Our current textiles project is looking at repeated patterns, so now seems like a good time to look a some ways of creating repeats.

Block patterns: "Divide and conquer" method
I call this method "divide and conquer" because it involves cutting you4r design into quarters. This tutorial covers it very well: draw a large design in the centre of your paper, cut into four VERY ACCURATELY and stick back together so that the white space at the edges of your design becomes the middle of the paper. Now draw something to fill in the white spaces. Because your original design was at the edge of the paper you can now join it up.


This tutorial covers the same process but in photoshop.

Geometric patterns: Tessellations
Tessellating shapes are shapes that can fit perfectly together. The 20th century Dutch artist MC Escher was famous for (among other things) very complex geometric designs like this:

Escher's designs look very complex but were made using simple mathematical principles. He took shapes that tessellated (such as squares, equilateral triangles and hexagons), cut shapes out of their sides and re-arranged them to create more complex shapes. Scroll down here to see his designs simplified to their base shapes. Here's a very handy tutorial from a very excited maths teacher

And here's a fun website where you can mess around with tessellations. I made a few quick ones myself, and they look something like this

Although they look relatively complex, they're made entirely from triangles and squares.

Software
Today artists have a vast range of tools that can make designing repeat patterns a whole lot easier. Editing software like Adobe Photoshop and vector software like Adobe Illustrator can create complex patterns with just a few clicks. I've never used Illustrator, so I won't be looking at it here but oddly 50% of the hits that come up if you google repeat patterns are Illustrator and vector tutorials.

Using Photoshop you can make repeat patterns from photographs and from complex images. I'll be uploading a few of my own photoshop patterns in the next few days.

More on repeats coming soon!

Photoshop Phun, Fotoshop Fun!

So today in Textiles we were playing with everybody's favourite pixel paint kit, Photoshop. My experiments turned out something like this...

black and white brush work

colour brush work

tracing from a photograph and colouring using layers

fun with filters

Pretty basic stuff, but fun to do.

Embroidered Jacket

This I found in a chairty shop a while back. I apologise for the dreadful picture quality, but you can just about see the lovely Indian-style repeat embroidery pattern.

Embroidered in satin stitch it gives the jacket a glossy quality, while the bold yellow and deep purple colour scheme are really eye-catching with panels of simpler and more complex patterns.

Muted Tie Dye

These fabulous watercolour-toned tye-dyes from SHABD are gorgeous. I'm not entirely sold on the cut of the garments, but the colour pallet is stunning.

Found via outsapop

Welcome to The Online Sketchbook!

Well, it's another year and another blog. This is a work-related blog where I'll be posting links, images, samples and information that I'll be using for my Textile Design course. As such, I like to think of this as my online sketchbook because it'll have everything here that normally goes into my sketchbooks, and a little more besides.