Teasing Tessellations

The Alhambra

Seventh graders viewed a picture of the Alhambra, a palace and fortress in Spain that was constructed during the mid 14th century.  Today it is one of Spain’s major tourist attractions, exhibiting the country's most significant and well known example of Islamic architecture.

M.C. Escher, Self-Portrait

In 1922, artist M.C. Escher visited the Alhambra and became fascinated by the ornate tile designs.  He spent many hours studying how they interlocked completely like a puzzle with no spaces in-between.  During his lifetime, M.C. Escher became obsessed with filling the page with pictures of creatures that did not overlap or leave spaces.  These pictures are called tessellations.

Tessellations are like jigsaw puzzles with the same shapes repeated throughout the picture.  When creating his tessellations, Escher used the following three principles of design:

·         Repetition

·         Pattern

·         Symmetry

      Students used these design principles to create their own tessellating patterns.  Then they used
     brightly colored mosaic paper “tiles” to fill in their tessellations with color.