Some Patterns

Ever since I saw a mind blowing Islamic exhibition in Venice back in the early 90's I have been interested in those ancient patterns that evolve from simple geometric shapes.

This is the first one that I copied into my sketchbook to try and understand. It was on the wall in the great Alhambra Castle in Southern Spain.

It is really quite simple made from a quarter of a square and a quarter of a circle... now try to draw it freehand.

 And this one is based on a similar idea using just circles and squares.

This is a bit more modern and was tricky to make as a vector because of the underlapping and overlapping but it makes a great all over pattern. It could make a great fence.

Here are some other little self contained patterns that you might see on a bowl, a buckle or the head of an axe, etc. overlapping forms that combine to make other shapes.

This final design was pretty common in one form another (not always with fish) and can be found on the bottom of a bowl which makes good sense, especially if you are having fish soup.

 Anyway, that is my little rant about patterns, I am always on the look out for them and they can be found just about everywhere people have had a bit of time to decorate a functional object. It happens less now days but good patterning is all over stuff from before the middle of the 20th century, buildings, manhole covers, fencing, balconies, brickwork, tiling, ceramics, wrought iron, carved wood, porcelain, anything just go into a city and look for it.