A Night On The Tiles

They are busy putting new tiles on this building at the moment- it houses Ferndown Council Offices, and our fine Town Library. Not sure this is a wise activity in a week of such high winds, but there you go...
The Latin word for tile is tessera, and small tiles, put together in a pattern are called tessellations.
I've long been fascinated by tessellation patterns, and particularly the ones created by the Dutch Artist M C Escher.
Look at these amazing creations - all exact, interlocking, repeat motifs -  Birds

Knights on horseback

 Lizards 

And a mixture of fishes and frogs

And then, this week, I came across a French Artist, Alain Nicolas, who not only draws brilliant tessellations, but has a wonderfully helpful website explaining how to design your own.
Look at these - men, dinosaurs, reindeer

These are so intricate, and so clever. Do check out his website, where he shows how to alter a basic tile pattern [square, hexagon, triangle etc] to make a repeating tile shaped like an animal or person or flower.

Here he has produced a dog tessellation in honour of his faithful friend Lucky.
I think it is so clever, and so well explained. I wish I had a class to teach this to on a wet windy Friday afternoon!
Actually I have taught about Escher in the past [without the benefit of Monsieur Nicolas' clear diagrams] and had great fun, combining principles of maths and geometry with artistic creativity.
There was a particular school I often worked at in Leicester where I did such a lesson. A few days later, a woman stopped me in the supermarket "It's Mrs Almond, isn't it? You were the  Supply Teacher for my son's class the other week. He really loved all the work you did about testicles. Thank you so much" I was slightly taken aback at first, till I realised what she meant. "Oh, yes, I remember now - the class produced some lovely tessellation patterns" [I wonder if the she realised later exactly what she had said. I hope not, the poor woman would have been mortified]
Who would have thought a host of guitarists like this could be rotated and interlocked, and used to cover a whole page?