Islamic Geometric Patterns

At home, I read through a bit more closely and it appeared that all I really needed was a ruler and a compass. I have plenty of rulers but the only compass I could find was in one of those “all in one box” mathematical kits you buy for kids. Having a look at the compass, it was immediately clear that it was incredibly ropey. So, on my next trip anywhere near a shop that sold stationary, I bought a better quality compass.

First attempt

So, armed with my new gear, I had a first attempt.

This looked like one of the simplest patterns in the book, a pattern from the Great Mosque of Cordoba in Spain. And it was indeed, pretty simple…although it had been a long time since I used a compass. The end result is pretty pleasing, even if it’s a bit rough around the edges.

Second attempt – dealing with tesselation

So far so good. I had a look through the book and chose a second pattern. I chose one that I thought looked even simper than the first but I hadn’t reckoned for the issue of tesselation.

This one is a pattern from Esfrefoglu Mosque in Turkey. What I hadn’t realised when I started was that the shape wasn’t square, it was hexagonal, meaning that repeating the pattern wasn’t as straightforward as the first pattern. I eventually created individual tiles, cut them out and then stuck them down. Worked ok, but was fiddly and because I’m not precise enough, there end up being gaps in the final pattern. I’m sure if I think about it more I can repeat the pattern without using this method.

Third attempt – back to square 1

Having learned my lesson, I found another pattern that was easy to repeat…basically a square.

This time the pattern is from the Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia. I’m getting into the swing of it now and am being a bit neater and more precise.

Fourth attempt – thickening the lines

This time I wanted to try thickening up the lines. I’d seen examples of this and liked the effect. I chose a very simple pattern and did everything a bit bigger, using an A3 sheet of paper this time. The pattern is from Ak Medrese in Turkey.

Drawing the pattern was really simple but thickening up the lines took an age. The easiest way to to it is to draw a small circle at every intersection and then join them all up. In the end, I just couldn’t draw a small circle with my compass so I ended up measuring and drawing all the lines. Pretty tedious and time consuming. I also drew the main lines in pen so I couldn’t erase them.

Still, I think the end result is still ok.

Fifth attempt – doing the weave

This time, as well as thickening up the lines, I wanted to try weaving them. I found a pattern that was marked as “intermediate” in the book and it wasn’t repeated. It’s from Chella Necropolis in Morocco,

I found this easier to draw than the earlier ones which were marked “easy”. This time I persevered and managed to draw small circles at all the intersections which made thickening the lines much quicker. Then it was a case of working meticulously to work the lines over and under each other. It took a while but it worked and I’m quite pleased with the result.

All in all, it’s been quite a success. I’m quite pleased with the results. I have been following step by step instructions so I haven’t really been learning any of the underlying techniques which might allow me to create my own patterns. I used to do technical drawing at school and I really enjoyed it…I liked the precision. It’s the same with this.

Things that I’ve learned in terms of equipment:

• Mechanical pencils are better for getting really sharp lines
• While it’s possible to divide a circle into 12 equal parts without a protractor…it’s easier to do it with one!
• I need to get a “pen” shaped eraser to be able to get rid of the construction lines more cleanly
• A clear ruler is better than a metal one….perhaps a clear one with a metal edge would be ideal
• I’m going to get a stencil for drawing really small circles…trying to do this with a compass is nigh on impossible

Having spent rather a lot of hours on this, I’m going to give it a rest for a bit before having another go.