I got interested in what Escher called “Periodic Surface Division” after my sister bought me a copy of Bruno Ernst’s The Magic Mirror of M C Escher for Christmas 1987. Alongside my other interests I have occasionally turned my hand to trying to create tessellation designs of my own. Here are some of them, with dates and brief explanations.
James Bond and Ernst Stavro Blofeld
(October 1991) p1 tiling
My earlier designs, like this one, were done by hand (not too hard for translation-only designs such as this, but increasingly tricky when you start to include rotation and glide-reflection). The two characters have the same contour, but Bond’s running towards us, while Blofeld is running away (okay, so Pierce Brosnan’s Bond never had to face Blofeld; it’s artistic licence…)
Strolling Men
(November 1998) pgg tiling
This one uses rotation and glide-reflection.
Like most of my designs since 1992, this was done on the computer, using CorelDraw! software (the ‘Clone’ tool comes in handy for tiling). Escher’s drawings nos. 33 and 124 are tiled like this—though Escher would have disapproved of upside-down human figures! (If this picture were in colour, you’d be able to see the blood rushing to their heads!)
I used this one on the dust jacket of my personal study for A-Level Art & Design (Graphics & Illustration).
Man and Parrot
(October 1998) p1 tiling: 2 motifs
Same translation-only symmetry type as James Bond above, but with two motifs. I quite liked this one and used it on the flyleaf of my personal study. Escher did lots of drawings using this symmetry pattern—the closest to this was probably no. 87, of two birds.
King Kong
(May 1991) cm tiling
Based on a hexagon—a long while after I drew this, I found Escher’s ‘Bats’ drawing (A1) which is pretty much the same: he did that early enough in his career that he was not concerned to use the minimum number of colours necessary (3). He used six colours.
Thugs
(August 2000) pg tiling
These two vicious-looking hooligans brandishing Stanley-knives are at least both standing up the same way (as Escher would prefer). I did the outline in CorelDraw! but hand painted the features. Some of Escher’s most famous designs use this symmetry pattern: the Swans (drawing 96) which Microsoft re-used, and the ingenious Horseman (drawing 67).
Note re Microsoft’s use of the Swans drawing: it’s either a great coincidence or an unusual piece of subtle wit on their programmers’ behalf: when they included that image as a tile for Windows “wallpaper” they called it “flock”—like flock wallpaper, but it’s a flock of birds, geddit?
Olympian
(September 2000) p2 tiling
I did this one at around the time of the Sydney Olympics. Also, the positive image of the two sportsmen with the Olympic flame was a good antidote to the unpleasant one I had just done of two ‘Thugs’ with knives!
Escher’s drawing no. 88 of seahorses is his nearest design to this one.
On the Beach
(October 2000) p3 tiling
This was the result of something of a struggle to get human figures tiling with p3 symmetry (as per Escher’s drawings 21—the ‘Chinese Boy’ and 25—the famous lizards)…
Looking back now, I think I should have finished detailing the feet and put more effort into the characters’ right arms—they look a bit stunted, don’t they? Perhaps each right hand could have been been holding an ice-cream which the adjacent character would be licking, too…
Dodo
(January 1999) p4 tiling
Well, it’s more of a sort of imaginary bird (with a touch of the Blue Meanies about it), but I was just developing an interesting design with T shapes (far right…)
The nearest design in Escher’s canon is No. 119 (Fish), used for the centre of the ‘Square Limit’ print.
Pack of Hounds 2
(July 1992) p1 tiling
Another very early one—but this uses the three-colour scheme that the James Bond image really should have had (his two-colour scheme is a bit of a cheat as you’ll see if you check the point where pairs of Bonds or Blofelds meet at shoe/gun)…
Pack of Hounds 3
(August 2000) p1 tiling: 2 motifs
Same symmetry group as the ‘Man & Parrot’. Also like that drawing, one figure is seen in full whilst the other is face-only. I just included this one because I like the cheery looks on the dogs’ faces.
Perhaps they are a golden labrador and a Scottish terrier.
Peter Rabbit and Mr. MacGregor
(April 2001) pg tiling: 2 motifs
I’d done a lot of drawings in the same symmetry groups, so I was trying to use a different one here! Okay, so if it was Peter Rabbit, he’d have that familiar blue waistcoat on, but those were the characters I thought of when this fluffy bunny and fierce man started to emerge from the shapes… I was pleased with the way the lines for the rabbit’s toes can also be hairs on the back of the man’s head, blown back with the force of his shout (the shout also shown in the lines from the rabbit’s tail).
Escher did a few drawings in this group, the closest to this one is no. 76, of birds and horses.
Kiwi
(June 2002) p2 tiling
This design was done as the basis of a 30th birthday card for a colleague who hails from Auckland. The kiwi is a nocturnal flightless bird native to New Zealand. It has a long beak, stout legs, and weakly barbed feathers. My colleague shared only some of these characteristics.
As a 3-colour p2 tiling, Escher’s drawings 1, 5–8 and 11 are most similar to this.
Fish and Seahorse
(November 2002) pgg tiling: 2 motifs
Again, I wanted to do something in a different symmetry group, so I went through Escher’s drawings until I found one with a particularly interesting pattern underneath: no. 68 (“Two Reptiles”). Playing with the rhombuses that underlie this design, I found the fish shape. I tweaked it until the spaces inbetween started to suggest something—and fortunately that was another water-dweller, the seahorse.