LATEST NEWS & UPDATES
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to see the updates that occurred during that period.


2014

19 July, 2014 New tessellations from Webmaster Sethness based on the video game "Angry Birds", seahorses and fish, and a circus seal tessellation in Dr. Seuss' style.

10 July, 2014 We've made a new tracing paper tessellation tutorial. This one uses equilateral triangles, "kite" shapes, and rotational (spin) symmetry.

7 July, 2014 Webmaster Seth reviews Pam Stephens' and Jim McNeill's 2001 book, an introductory do-it-yourself tessellation book for artistic kids 8 to 11 years old.

6 July, 2014 We have a new project lesson suitable for artists of any age: we show you how to make a rubber stamp from a medicine bottle or the top of a soda bottle.

16 June, 2014 Professor Kevin Lee decorates his office door with tessellation stickers made with a vinyl cutter, brainpower, and a lot of fiddling. Bonus: The video includes Professor Lee yet again driving his car over his art. He's a serial offender in that category: last year, he drove his car over a wooden chessboard he'd made using Escher's famous gecko tessellation. The man ... needs counseling. (Warning: Link leads offsite, and opens in a new window.)

16 June, 2014 Make-A-Fish Foundation, a "burning man"-style group that encourages everyone to enjoy our differences and similarities, and to be an artist & individualistic yet part of a community, found a great way to do all this. They show us uniquely, individualistically decorated fish in tessellations on canvases, on sculpted and molded pendants, in papercraft, and more.

15 June, 2014 Webmaster Sethness shows off the tessellating fish he caught during his latest "fishing trip". These fish are the latest in a series of cooperate ifforts with the "Make A Fish Foundation", which aims to inspire everyone to release their inner artist. That is, to do art, even if it's not your profession, not your hobby, and something you haven't done in a looooong time. The "Make A Fish Foundation" makes group and individual art at events like Burning Man, on derelict or unsightly buildings, and we're even working on a "Make A Fish" fish tessellation coloring/activity book.

14 June, 2014 A school aaaalll the way over in Glasgow, Scotland shows off the tessellation art made by 4 of their 4th level students, just 8 years old. Check 'em out!

11 June, 2014 Oops! The print-decorate-and-fold DIY 12 goldfish gift box that we published between June 6 and June 10 2014 had an error. It just didn't work. The new, valid version of our DIY 12 goldfish giftbox is on our website now, here. Print it out, decorate it, and send us a photo! We may publish it on Tessellations.org

6~10 June, 2014 Webmaster Seth has made 4 new do-it-yourself print-and-fold paper sculptures with tessellations on them: a fold-print-decorate-and-paste papercraft dodecahedron with 60 seahorses, an octahedron with 12 turtles on it, an octahedron with 24 goldfish on it, and a cube with 12 goldfish on it. Each one is available for free download in already-complete-with-internal-details form and also in coloring-book "outline-only" style so you can color 'em in yourself in any way you please.

27 May, 2014 We've raised our standard for tessellation art sent by you for display on Tessellations.org.

24 May, 2014 Webmaster Sethness writes ALOHA and the main Hawaiian islands HAWAII, OAHU, MAUI, LANAI, and KAUAI as ambigrams.

22 May, 2014 Webmaster Sethness draws a pretty McDonald's restaurant in Nanakuli, Oahu, Hawaii with a surreal tessellation of Skipjack fish ("Ulua", in Hawaiian) swimming in and out the windows.

21 May, 2014 Welcome Ms. Willa of Villa Montessori School ("mostly wombat free", we're assured) in Phoenix Arizona. Her class of creative part-time wombat kids presents their tessellations in our latest guest school art gallery.

21 March, 2014 Webmaster Seth used TesselManiac to make another tessellation. This time it's... Super Dog! ...A tessellation of dogs with wings.

20 March, 2014 Back in January, as part of a class project, Toni F. drew a great tessellation of horned owls (or was it a tessellation of great horned owls?) and Kira K. drew a tessellation of frantic, psychedelic, bipolar bacteria. Have these two kids created a new bird flu?? Alert the CDC!

30 January, 2014 Ms. Rider's 4th grade REACH math class, in Hawthorne Elementary School, Elmhurst, Illinois, has given us examples of their tessellation and symmetry art.

30 January, 2014 The Webmaster has made a newer, more realistically colored version of Maniacal Mice.

24 January, 2014 Webmaster Sethness shows his latest tessellation of birds, made using TesselManiac! tessellation-maker software.

7 January, 2014 9-year old Braden White shows us two versions of his tessellation of Star Wars' (™) Yoda. The first is not a tessellation because it has gaps. The second is a definitive example of what a tessellation must be.

2013 Winter

17 December, 2013 Kangaroo Tessellation on a Sidewalk: Ever look at a sidewalk covered with dirt or mold, and wonder how to make it shiny-clean again? Most people use a water blaster, sand blaster, or bleach+water+broom. Bruce Bilney looked at a dirty sidewalk and said, "Hey, that's a canvas waiting for art." He cut a large kangaroo-shaped hole in linoleum flooring, laid the flooring on a sidewalk, and blasted the hole in it with water.

10 December, 2013 Ms. Sorrentino's 4th grade REACH math class, in Hawthorne Elementary School, Elmhurst, Illinois, has once again provided us with examples of math+art=fun.

26 November, 2013 Professor Kevin Lee has written Tesselmaniac, software for making and learning about tessellations. Until January 15th, 2014, you can download a FREE version from his website, www.TesselManiac.com. After that, it will stop working. The official version, available after that, will cost US$30 per copy.

25 November, 2013 I, Webmaster Seth, made a do-it-yourself tutorial about how to make an asian "chop" (signature seal) from stone, wood, or plastic.

19 November, 2013 I, Webmaster Seth, made a tessellation poster for Hawaii's Kahuku Public School Library's 45th anniversary.

2013 Autumn

30 October, 2013 Tessellations.org starts its 10th year today!!! w00t!!!

26 September, 2013 M. B. of The Netherlands created her first 2 tessellations, a tessellation of whales and penguins and a tessellation of ladybugs, spiders, bats, & butterflies.


20 September, 2013 I, Webmaster Seth, created a tessellation project of birds on branches based around tiles developed from equilateral triangles. I call it Partridges in a Pear Tree".

19 September, 2013 Mary S. shows us a tessellation of various animals but a single tile shape, done in black & white in ballpoint pen.

18 September, 2013 Austen Freda sent in a tessellation of dancing chickens. Yes, really.

10 September, 2013 Webmaster Sethnesshas created a handful of ambigram tessellations using friends' initials.

5 September, 2013 Michael Hodsdon has created a tessellation self-portrait and shares the do-it-yourself techniques he's learned.

2013 Summer

15 August, 2013 Kailee of Australia sent in "Praying Mantis", her first tessellation, a math class art project cut from colored construction paper. It's surprising to us that few people make their tessellations from cut and colored paper.

15 August, 2013 Emmanuelle in the Netherlands has painted her first tessellation and sent it to us to show it off a bit. Have a look!

15 August, 2013 Australian Bruce Bilney, who has created many excellent and very well-known tessellations has carved a tessellation of kangaroos and continents on a wooden chess board and a tessellation of the Australian continent on the lid of a wooden jewelry box.

14 August, 2013 Kevin Lee carved an award-winning wooden box with tessellations on each of the 6 sides. The award comes from the prestigious Bridges international contest for math-inspired art. He also created a pair of wooden chessboards that have tessellations of turtles and Escher's famous lizards.

13 August, 2013 I've made a sea shell tessellation. It has rotational symmetry, and it's built around equilateral triangles. Each seashell is an equilateral triangle, and each set of three shells creates a larger equilateral triangle.

8 August, 2013 I've made a 2nd version of my allosaur or T-rex dinosaur tessellation. This latest version was sketched entirely by hand in colored pencil and colored ballpoint pen. It is larger, colorful, and cartoony.

5 August, 2013 I've made a 3rd version of my Escher-style shark tessellation. This latest version looks much more alive-- less stiff and stuffed than the 2nd version.

25 July, 2013 I've created a 2nd version of my Escher-style shark tessellation art. This new version is much more seamless than my 2011 original. The older version had shamelessly large gaps between the tiles (sharks). A proper tessellation should have "no gaps nor overlaps".

15 July, 2013 Angela Aycox's 2012~2013 4th grade class math class from Zaneis Elementary School in Wilson, Oklahoma show off their Escher-style tessellation art.

14 July, 2013 Mike Maloney, who in 2010 showed us his very popular ghost tessellation, now shows us Escher-style tessellation of birds in flight and birds with bats.

9 July, 2013 Four kids at Lone Tree Elementary School of Colorado show us their Escher-style tessellations.

8 July, 2013 Tucker Troast has done his first tessellation ever. It's an Escher-style tessellation of birds.

5 July, 2013 I've done a dinosaur tessellation.

4 July, 2013 Only a month after the first batch, we have a new batch of tessellation art from Ms. Widya Huang's 4th grade math class in Batari School, a small school located in Medan, Northern Sumatra, Indonesia.

2 July, 2013 Ava Taylor of Texas shows us her tessellation of Flying Doves.

25 June, 2013 Math teacher Gail Hendrix shows us her acrylic painting of tessellating fish

24 June, 2013 Silas Haglund has made a tessellation of longnose butterfly fish.

23 June, 2013 TickleMeCthulu, an artist at DeviantArt.com, shows us an excellent rabbit tessellation.

5 June, 2013 Look at the new tessellation art from the 4th grade classroom of Ms.Widya Huang, a math teacher from Grade 4 in Batari School, a small school located in Medan, Northern Sumatra, Indonesia. She shows us Escher-style tessellations made by her eight 4th grade students. I think this is the first time a school outside the USA has given us tessellation art.

4 June, 2013 Matthew Van Atta shows us his Escher-inspired fish tessellation art painted inside a dish which he made by hand.

2012 Autumn

23 October, 2012 We have a new ambigram in the non-tessellation Escher-style art gallery. This one is a very simple ambigram of the word "Ohio".

20 September, 2012 As promised in 2011, we now have a dreidel tessellation that fits in nicely alongside our menorah tessellation art.

2012 Summer

20 June, 2012 Areolfos of deviantArt.com did an oustanding dragon tessellation, and shares it with us.

17 June, 2012 Four ambigrams join the art in my non-tessellation gallery. Although M. C. Escher never did ambigrams, and most ambigrams are not tessellations, I think this kind of art belongs in www.Tessellations.org, which is allllllll about Escher-style symmetry art.

15 June, 2012 Alfred Meyers III, shows us his tessellation of elephants and of dragons.

10 June, 2012 I turned a pair of Thai toys woven from long grass into angelfish theme tessellation art.

2012 Spring

27 May, 2012 Carlos Cortes of Mexico, age 20, sent in his very first tessellation art. It contains a clever pirate motif. Mr. Cortes drew it in Corel Draw® using our Line Method 1 for 'how to make tessellations'.

24 May, 2012 Zaneis Elementary School of Wilson, Oklahoma proudly displays its make-your-own Escher-style tessellation art in our newest guest school gallery ...just before going on Summer Vacation, and probably forgetting allll about us... *snif-snif*. Or maybe those kids will spend their summers honing their art skillz???.

22 May, 2012 Honey Elementary School of Lubbock, Texas shows off its Escher-style tessellation art in our newest guest school gallery.

20 May, 2012 I've opened up a new gallery, non-tessellation Escher style art that shows trick perspective, and will later also show ambigrams, warped perspective, and hyperrealism.

22 April, 2012 I made a little tessellation of ducks landing.

21 April, 2012 Ms. Suzette Mitchell's 7th grade gifted math class in Coosa Middle School, Rome, Georgia, in the U.S.A. made some fun Escher-style tessellation art. Check 'em out, then make a tessellation yourself!

23 March, 2012 Welcome Chilean tessellation artist Claudio Fernando Ramirez Lagos of Chile. Enjoy his colorful, vibrant, cartoony tessellations of cats, fish, seahorses and turtles.

22 March, 2012 A one-of-a-kind review: Explaining why you should avoid tessellation artist and writer David Bailey. This poison pen review uses rough language and is therefore not suitable for kids, but I hope teachers and other adults will read it and take its message to heart.

13 March, 2012 Many thanks to 8th grade math teacher Tammy Rahn, who wrote and asked me to fix the broken menu link to our large Tessellation Animation gallery. D'oh! I wonder how many weeks it lay there broken, frustrating you visitors while I remained unaware of the problem. The fix was just a few taps on the keyboard, so PLEASE, if you see something on this site that doesn't work, or should be better, let me know!

12 March, 2012 Artist Bruce Bilney's gallery has been expanded from just 1 to about 15 fun tessellating patterns.

2012 Start

20 February, 2012 A wooden puzzle with an elephant theme comes to us from Kevin Lee, who carved it with a laser cutter, based on Bruce Bilney's design.

6 January, 2012 We now have two more tessellations from pro designer A J Alper. This time, A J has done a Cats and Dogs Tessellation and a Frogs and Fishes Theme Tessellation.

2011 Winter

21 December, 2011 Professional designer A J Alper shows us his tessellation art, first with a seahorse motif and then with an interlocking shark theme.

18 December, 2011 The banners at the tops of Tessellations.org pages are now animated. Love it? Hate it? Is it too distracting during class, teachers? Tell me. You can turn the animation on and off by passing your mouse (cursor) over it. The default start state is "yes, animate the banner." Passing your mouse over the banner then turns animation off. To then reanimate the banner, you can either reload the webpage (CRTL-R) or let your mouse again hover over the banner. Experiment to see how it works.

9 December, 2011 I'm an idiot. Since childhood I've been looking at the candelabras used for the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, and at Escher's art for the same long time, but only now did it occur to me that a menorah and its buddies can tessellate very well. Be on the lookout for my next tessellation, "dradels!" ...Oodles and oodles of dradels.

25 November, 2011 Ms. Sorrentino's 4th grade math class of 2011 at Hawthorne Elementary School, Elmhurst, Illinois made this great tessellation artwork.

2011 Autumn

3 October, 2011 "Bring Aloha Back" is a first-time tessellation from professional artist Luke Atay. Adults (not kids), be sure to visit his website called "Inside the Box" as well, to see his many other works including murals, ambigrams, and art done on corrugated cardboard panels.

2011 Summer

9 August, 2011 Sitting Buddha statues make a puzzle picture.

4 August, 2011 Guppies tessellate in what Yesenia Aceves describes as her first tessellation. Nicely done, Yesenia!

2 August, 2011 Sharks tessellate in my latest art.

28 July, 2011 We proudly present 28 tessellations made by Chris Taranta's Spring 2011 9th grade geometry class in Julia R. Masterman school of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

15 July, 2011 Our section on Tessellations all around us has been upgraded, with a moderate amount of new material. Please contribute!

11 July, 2011 Famous Australian tessellation artist Bruce Bilney lets us animate his tessellation of kangaroos. Expect more of Bruce's art on Tessellations.org in the future. Computer boffins will enjoy learning that this GIF animation weighs only 18 kilobytes. That's light.

6 July, 2011 6th grader Shannon Smith did a puppy tessellation artwork all on her own, with no other guidance than our "Line Method 1" lesson nor any motivator other than her own desire to make this kind of art. Way to go, Shannon!

4 July, 2011 I've written a fun essay with more hints on how to make a tessellation. Oh, and I wish you a happy Independence Day, America.

29 June, 2011 Chess pieces fit together nicely. With very little adjustment, they make a fine tessellation. I can't believe it hasn't occurred to anyone else yet. I've been checking with other tessellation artists and with chess enthusiasts. So far, we've found a handful of chess knight tessellations and some rather modern non-standard chess sets that tessellate, but nothing done with the entirety of a standard chess set.

13 June, 2011 I've expanded the section about symmetry-- that is, the ways patterns repeat-- so it now has clear examples of the 3 most popular kinds of symmetry: translation / sliding / gliding, reflection, and rotation. These're also known as Slide-and-Glide, Flip, and Turn.

10 June, 2011 Minneapolis artist "Rossi" treats us to a look at some of his newest pieces, an unusual fusion of graffiti, calligraphy, and tessellation.

6 June, 2011 - Tessellations.org now has an essay, with many many examples, about how to choose a theme that'll make tessellation creation easy. Please enjoy "Popular Easy Motifs in Tessellation Art".

2011 Spring

12 May, 2011 - Guest Artist Ms. Angie Heick provides us with a hexagon-based translation + slide tessellation of lions' heads. She knits these designs. She's promised to share photos of this lion design when it's knitted. When those photos arrive I'll proudly display them in Tessellations.org's "Real Materials" gallery.

8 May, 2011 - Glitches and changes are headed our way for the next few weeks. Some of the links may be broken and some of the pages will look a bit different. If a page does not load properly for you, please look at the URL at the top of your web browser. Where it says "http://www.tessellations.org/...", does the thing end in ".htm"? If it does, try manually changing the ".htm" to ".shtml". That small change might be enough to get you to the new version of the page. I apologize. Let me offer a word of explanation: these are symptoms of slow improvement. I am rewriting much of the code that "runs" this website. Since Tessellation.org's beginning, it has used a main menu that was written in JavaScript. The menu has been adequate, but it completely fails to appear if you have JavaScript turned off, as many people do. I'm replacing that menu with a CSS menu that will appear even if you have all scripts turned off. ~Seth

6 May, 2011 - Teacher Barbara McCaskill's 8th grade class from North Corbin Junior High School in Walker, Louisiana, America (Go, Bears!) has been learning about geometry "translations". Along the way, they've done a bit of tessellation art in class. Their art gallery is the newest section of our website. Check it out!

16 April, 2011 - My new essay is online. In it, I describe the difference between Escher style tessellations and Alhambra style tessellations. By 'Escher style' I mean 'representational': each tile looks like a person, animal, or toaster. By 'Alhambra style', I mean non-representational tilings: tiles may look like geometric figures or other abstract shapes.

2011 Start

25 February, 2011 - "Tessellation or not?" a new section of this website. For a long time, I've wanted to write this section, but couldn't find enough artists willing to show their beautiful but (possibly) non-tessellation art on my site. This section teaches "what is a tessellation?" by example. You look at several pieces of symmetry art, and decide whether they fit the definition of a tessellation. Examples come from kids, me, a pro photographer, and David (the first webmaster here).

18 January, 2011 - Minnesota Clearwater Middle School's 8th grade math class, led by teacher Mary Jo Hughes, contributes some beautiful tessellations to our school gallery. But wait, there's more! Mary Jo Hughes gives us a recursive surprise by talking about her kids, this website, and tessellations on page 13 of her PDF online magazine, MathBits. Check it out by clicking here.

10 January, 2011 - Where Do Baby Alligators Come From?: a spiral 2D tessellation. ~~Seth, Webmaster

9 January, 2011 - Alligator Bowl: a 3D tessellated sphere sketched out on flat paper. Eventually, I'll sculpt or carve this. Since it has 24 alligators-- 12 per hemisphere-- I may make a rotating clock of it. ~~Seth, Webmaster

3 January, 2011 - Sidewalk tessellations art in chalk by guest artist Negina Kolesar for a chalk art festival

2010

November 10, 2010 - Scientriffic Magazine for science-oriented kids over age 7 published an article about tessellation in their November issue, and included some of our art. See a sample page from the magazine here.

10 September, 2010 - A delightfully Halloween-appropriate ghost tessellation by guest artist Mike Maloney. These're such friendly-looking white and orange ghosts. I can easily imagine this pattern becoming commercially successful on Halloween party paraphrenalia.

16 July, 2010 - Tessellations are all around us: Tessellations are in the news, in nature, in our homes and cities. Teachers, show your students our gallery of "tessellations all around us". Then, for homework, ask your students to find and list as many tessellations as they can find in their homes, in a supermarket, in a park, school, forest or shopping mall. Exceptional examples from your students may be posted in this gallery.

26 May, 2010 - Wood carving in 3D: a carved wooden spherical tessellation by Hungarian guest artist Tamas Szegeti

25 May, 2010 - A new tessellation animation. This one celebrates Firefox, the free open-source Web browser, by using the Firefox logo and the letters F, O, X, and Y to create a 3D tessellation in the shape of a cube.

16 April, 2010 - Sometimes you type a www...com address, or click on a link, and things don't work right. The Internet can't find the webpage you're looking for. At times like this, the Internet computer you've reached tells you "404: I can't find the webpage you requested. Is it spelled right?" Those messages are sometimes very unfriendly and difficult to understand. That's why I wrote my own 404 message page for Tessellations.org.

14 April, 2010 - One more art class has volunteered to post their tessellation art on Tessellations.org. Welcome, Karen Weber's 4th grade art class from Saint Ignatius Loyola Regional School in Pennsylvania.

7 April, 2010 - My watercolor dog tessellation pattern, done as a new year's greeting card.

30 March, 2010 - A new, fun school gallery by part-time superhero and full-time teacher Brenda Senack's 4th grade math class in Geneva City, New York State. Brenda also gives us a teachers' tessellation lesson plan in PDF form.

7 March, 2010 - A new tessellation of two tropical fish and a ray, by a friend nicknamed "Ozplasmic".

17 January, 2010 - A thumbs-up review of Shodor.org's online tessellation-making software .

6 January, 2010 - Read about Hop David's new tessellation coloring book, "Magic Mirror Image".

2009

25 December, 2009 - A collection of new tessellation art by Mr. Tidwell's math students from Lizzie M. Burges School in Seguin, Texas

10 November, 2009 - A new gallery of Hop David's amazing tessellation art.

24 February, 2009 - "Namaqualand", a tapestry-like tessellation by Martha Lane

23 February, 2009 - "Under the Needle", a hexagon tessellation by Tom McDonnell

2008 Winter

26 November, 2008 - "Tessellating Yappy Puppies" by Marian Mendez

26 November, 2008 - "Tessellating Rosebuds" by Marian Mendez

25 November, 2008 - "Tessellating Boat-Tail Grackles": a tessellation of photographed birds by Marian Mendez

25 November, 2008 - "Progressive Hope": a tessellation of doves by Seth

24 November, 2008 - "Three Goldfish": triplets of fish make a pattern of equilateral triangles by Seth

23 November, 2008 - "Powerboats and Sailboats": a tessellation for the ocean by Seth

2008 Autumn

23 October, 2008 - "Too much schooling": a tessellation of schooling fish by Seth

10 October, 2008 - The way Tessellations.org originally defined tessellation drew scholarly criticism because it seemed to preclude designs (like the Moorish designs in the Alhambra of Spain) made from purely geometric shapes like squares and triangles. Our definition of tessellation seemed to insist that the design must use more natural, realistic shapes like plants, animals, and people. I agree with the critics, so Tessellations.org now defines true tessellation as "filling any surface completely with a repeating shape, with no gaps or overlaps". Notice that in our definition, the surface needn't be an infinite plane, nor even a 2D surface. In the future, I plan to show many more tessellations on 2D non-infinite surfaces and on 3D objects' surfaces. I would like also to encourage you to contribute copyright-free photos of the geometric tessellations appearing in Middle Eastern art and the Alhambra.

25 September, 2008 - Five Cat Dodecahedron by Seth: a simple 12-sided 3D object. Easy to print out and glue together. Each facet is a pentagon with 5 cats tessellated on it.

24 September, 2008 - Kitchen Floor Tile Tessellation, an amazing home improvement made from 1,300 handmade ceramic tiles! By Mr. Dick Walton and Mrs. Susan Newell of Billings, Montana, and their potter friend, Jim Morrison.


23 September, 2008 - Clown Ball, a 3D tessellation by Seth of 12 clowns drawn on the sides of a "dodecahedron", a sphere made of twelve pentagons.

19 September, 2008 - Fascination, a tessellation by Seth of baby seaturtles and bats.

18 September, 2008 - Liquid World, nostalgia for a summer spent at the seashore...and fountain pens. A tessellation by Seth.

15 September, 2008 - Red Fish, Blue Fish by Coleman Johnson, age 9, using MS Paint.

2008 Spring~Summer

1 June, 2008 - The unfairness of the Cycle of Poverty, by Seth.

14 May, 2008 - A tessellation of Greyhound dogs by guest artist J. Althoff

6 May, 2008 - Tessellations.org today lost its founder and original webmaster, David Annal. This comes after three years of successes battling cancer, during which time he continued to contribute art and coding to this site, and to develop other art websites such as ApophysisStash.org, a fractal art website. His generosity, intelligence, and art will be greatly missed. A tessellation contest is planned in his honor. The site will continue under webmaster Seth Bareiss

23 April, 2008 - A tessellation of butterflies by Seth

1st January, 2008 - A brand new type of gallery: tessellations from a school's students, submitted by the schoolteacher and posted on our site as a single school's gallery. Have a look at DECTC school's tessellations. Does your school have tessellations you'd like to show in our galleries? Let us know!

2007 Summer~Autumn~Winter

20th December, 2007 - Fish evolving? A fun cartoony tessellation by Seth.

17th December, 2007 - Our first tessellation tutorial from a guest artist! See the Papercut Method by 15-year-old Rachael G.

10th December, 2007 - New Red Cross tessellation on intentionally crumpled paper by Seth.

5th November, 2007 - New tessellation art by amateur Paul Davey in our guest gallery: Cat with Fish, Fly and Lizard, Four Beaks, Mouse and Cheese, Seahorse and Fish, and Bluebird and Cat.

22nd July, 2007 - New real materials plate by Laurel Bender.

22nd July, 2007 - Guest tessellation by Coleman aged 8 - thanks Coleman.

4th June, 2007 - Highly recommended book reviewed - 'Parcelles d'infini'.

Added a new tessellation - Mon Dieu - the French are tessellating! - David.

2007 Start~Spring

8th May, 2007 - Added a new tutorial, specifically for young students and people without computers: Easy Tessellation Lesson using Pencil and Tracing Paper. We also provide it in downloadable easy-to-share and easy-to-print JPG and Adobe Acrobat PDF versions.

2nd May, 2007 - Added two new tessellations, in comic form: "If Escher drew a Farside Cartoon" and "Escher's Cat is Hungry".

28th April, 2007 - Added a new animation, "Dancing Cats meet Godzilla".

27th April, 2007 - Added a new tessellation, "Sailboat Race".

26th April, 2007 - Added a new tessellation, "Fly Away".

26th April, 2007 - Added Real Materials 13 - Town planning with tessellations!

26th March, 2007 - Added a new tessellation, "Invisible Pink Unicorns". ~Seth

24th March, 2007 - Added "28 Birds", a basswood bas-relief carving by Phil Allin based on Escher's "Sun and Moon"

22nd March, 2007 - Added a new digital tessellation to David's Art : "Infinite Politeness", showing uncounted tuxedo-clad men bowing to one another. ~Seth

12th March, 2007 - Added four new woodcarvings to our Real Materials gallery: Three tributes to Escher by guest-artist Phil Allin (1, 2, 3) and one original piece by Seth.

13th February, 2007 - Added a new animation-- a short film, this time-- to our animation gallery. This is a film of one of Seth's goldfish tessellation balls, showing the various Al Hirschfeld-style cartoon faces. See it here.

30th January, 2007 - Added a new tessellation to Seth's gallery (Lions Circled) and a new Flash animation (Lions) to our rapidly growing animations area.

27th January, 2007 - Begun Guest Gallery 3 with a contribution from Sara Kelly - see Galleries above

9th January, 2007 - A review of a popular, free tessellation program, Kali 5.2 for Windows95

2006 Autumn~Winter

12th December, 2006 - A new review of an old, popular standalone tessellation program, TesselMania

18th November, 2006 - How about an aquarium with fish that tessellate? See here

14th November, 2006 - Tessellations with Lego? Yes indeed, check Real Materials here. And I've added another animation of kite flying

11th November, 2006 - This weekend I've made a new animation, Dancers. ~Seth

8th November, 2006 - I've also done a new animation, Crebain Spies, remember the crow-like creatures who spied on the members of the Fellowship of the Ring? And there are two new tessellations in my art gallery 7 ~David

8th November, 2006 - In addition to asking you to contribute your art to our guest galleries, we encourage child and adult artists to enter World of Escher's free tessellation contest. This popular Internet contest has been held every six months for over a decade. Entering costs nothing; prizes vary, but are always from World of Escher's online store. More importantly, entries are displayed in a high-profile contest gallery for six months, during which time everyone is invited to visit the site, vote for a favorite, and leave positive comments for favorite entries. The top few entries apear in a permanent hall of fame. Entries should be in the form of emailed JPG files less than 100 kilobytes, and must be accompanied by a simple entry form. Entries can be made by computer or by hand, but must be original designs and be the work of the contestant whose name appears on the form. Although in the past the majority of past contestants and winners has been schoolchildren, World of Escher tells us that adult entries are increasing; if more than 15 adults enter the coming competition(s), then World of Escher will create separate divisions (and awards) for children and adults. ~Seth
UPDATE: The WorldOfEscher.com website ceased its contests in late 2011. Our website, Tessellations.org, will revive them in 2014. ~Seth

7th November, 2006 - I've created a new animation, 'ducks', for our Animation Gallery. In addition, we welcome 'Devil Ducks', an original tessellation done in plaster by a guset artist, to our Real Materials gallery. Many thanks to guest artist R. S. Newall of New Zealand for contributing a photo of 'Devil Ducks' to our site. ~Seth

25th October, 2006 - Our 3rd birthday is on 30th October! To celebrate, David has given the site a shakeup and, even better, Seth has agreed to become joint owner/editor/manager 8-). This means changing the 'David's Art ' references throughout the site to 'David's and changing Seth's status from guest artist.

Major changes are the new 'Software' section in the main menu, and the fledgling 'Animation' section under Galleries. Tessellation software will be reviewed and tested and opinions given. To begin with it contains 3 programs with several examples from each. Purpose software has been removed from the DIY section. There is only one animation at present but it will grow! David has also started gallery 7!

10th October, 2006 - 1 new tessellation ("4-and-twenty blackbirds") in Guest Artist Sethness Gallery 3

25th September, 2006 - 3 new tessellations in 'David's Art 6'

5th September, 2006 - A few minor updates and improvements. Where're those promised contributions for the guest galleries?
Latest stats - we're serving up over 8K pages per day. The site has had 44 million accesses since we began in Oct 2003.

2007 Start~Spring

7th May, 2006 - Added another contribution to 'Guest Gallery 2' - thanks CraftLord

7th March, 2006 - Added another contribution to 'Guest Gallery 2' and started 'Sethness Gallery 3'.

18th February, 2006 - Added 3 more contributions to 'Guest Gallery 2. Thank you.   Sethness has designed a tessellations colouring book for kids. Details and sample pages in 'Galleries - Guest Artist - Sethness'  from orange menu bar.

7th February, 2006 - Added a tessellation of mine to 'David's Art 6' and a contribution to 'Guest Gallery 2' - thank you, Gary. Also added 4 new tessellations to guest artist 'Sethness Gallery 2'.

21 January, 2006 - Added a Sethness tessellation ball to 'Real Materials' gallery. A few minor adjustments elsewhere.

2005

21 December, 2005 - Added 2 more tessellations to 'David's Art 6'


12 December, 2005 - Tessellations.org is pleased to welcome Sethness as Guest Artist. You can see his innovative drawings and pictures from the orange 'Galleries' menu above.

19th November, 2005 - 2 new guest submissions in the Guest Galleries - thank you Heather and Houston. Also added some fractal lobsters in David's Art 6.

31st October, 2005 - We have had a 2nd birthday. Another tessellation added to David's Art 6

12th September, 2005 - A new painted ball in Galleries - Real Materials.

3rd August, 2005 - 2 new tessellations in the new Guest Gallery no.2 - thank you for contributing Nicole and Abbey. 1 new tessellation in David's Art 6.

25th June, 2005 - Thanks to the inspiration of the wonderful wall-hanging sewn by Lesley Hendricks, I have started a new section called 'Real Materials' - see under 'Galleries'. Here I hope to show off tessellations designed as actual quilts, carvings and anything else that can be held! If you have made anything like this, please send a photo for inclusion here.

15th June, 2005 - 2 new tessellations in David's Art 5 and start of David's Art 6.

6th June, 2005 - New tessellation in guest gallery from Hallie McGee age 9 - youngest contributor so far!! Come on you kids - more wanted! See your name on the Tessellations site.

24th May, 2005 - New tessellation in David's Art 5.

19th April, 2005 - New tessellations in David's Art 5 and Guest gallery.

30th March, 2005 - New tessellation in David's Art 5.

12th February, 2005 - Teachers - I have removed the tessellation of a nude woman! It was completely innocuous but when I put her in, I did not realise how popular the site would become with teachers of young children. It is now indexed by many junior librarians.

2nd February, 2005 - I have added another section to the 'Do It Yourself' menu to answer some 'Frequently Asked Questions'. The first ones deal with flipping and periodicy. There are more good contributions to the guest gallery too.

26th January, 2005 - At last someone has sent me a new tessellation for the guest gallery - thanks Pete.

2004

26th December, 2004 - Added 1 more tessellation to David's Art 5.


17th December, 2004 - Added another tessellation to David's Art 5. Shame on you many teachers who promised your pupil's efforts for the guest gallery - NONE received. Perhaps your teaching is not as good as you thought it was!

11th June, 2004 - Added 2 more tessellations to David's Art 5 and a "Desert Scene" to My Nice but not True gallery.

21st May, 2004 - Began David's Art 5 with 2 new tessellations. Many of you promised to send in your tessellations for the guest gallery but few have. Perhaps my explanations were not as good as I thought and you keep telling me??

29th April, 2004 - David's Art 4 is now full. Many schools are looking at the site and are very welcome but, because the guestbook is open to all, I'm afraid it's getting some 'silly' messages from some of the less well educated pupils 8-(   I'm removing these as soon as I find them and I'm sorry if you see one before I've clobbered it!

5th April, 2004 - Added 3 more tessellations to David's Art 4.

13th March, 2004 - Added more to David's Art 4. I'm amazed at how popular this site has become - almost 2 million accesses since it started! Perhaps I'm doing something right 8-) Thanks everybody - but the Guest Gallery could do with some more pictures!

21st February, 2004 - Added this page. Added new DIY section - Multiple Motifs. Added example of this, 'Siameses', to 'David's Art 4'. Brought index of pages up to date.

15th February, 2004 - Yahoo chose this site as a 'Pick of the Day' - thanks! Able to welcome many new visitors and read their comments in my guestbook. Thank you to all who filled it in (only a fraction of those who came though). I am now eagerly awaiting their contributions to my guest's gallery which is still very bare in spite of new bear 8-)

2003

Tessellations.org starts up in October of 2003.

Since the site opened in October 2003, several people have asked for permission to use pictures in books, on sites, etc. This is mostly quite OK by me (and I'll even give it to you in high res. if required) but please ask before you swipe anything - and give this site a plug or, even better, a link! Any site linking will of course be given one back. ~~Doctor David (2011 EDIT: This policy has changed a bit. Absolutely email us to arrange any borrowing / copyright / permission to reproduce our art BEFORE you use it. ~~ Seth Bareiss, webmaster from 2006 onward)

I try and check everything but if you do find any mistakes please let me know - see 'contact' in the 'Site Information' menu.