Emulating Escher: Project overview

The Emulating Escher project project is a project based on creating tesselations, in the manner of M.C. Escher. By learning about geometry and the different shape transformations, we were able to replicate what M.C. Escher is most known for.




M.C. Escher (Maurits Cornelis) was born on June 17, 1898 in the Dutch province of Friesland. Later, Escher moved to Haarlem, studying architecture and decorative arts. After a short time in the city, he later acquainted with Jessurun de Mesquita, an artists that encouraged Escher's art. M.C. Escher is most famous for his intricately detailed tessellations, in addition to his numerous paintings, many of them physically impossible. For example, the Impossible Triangle, which he popularized, not created, or the Inifinite Staircase/

To create my own rendition of M.C. Escher's tessellations, my initial shape to begin with was a SQUARE. I was out of ideas, and the shape suggested to me was a giraffe. After several trials and errors, I ended up wit the shape as shown. The cuts made are shown in the diagram.
As my medium for this project, I decided to use a computer, creating my tessellation digitally, as opposed to using paper in the analog fashion. I chose to use Sketchup and Photoshop to create it. The reason I went Computer over paper is because Sketchup/Photoshop objects can be much more easily manipulated and created, without any waste in materials. If I were to use paper, cutting would be a permanent choice, and could not be undone. If I were to make a mistake, or wish to change my design, I would need several pieces of paper, wasting many resources.
In terms of Geometry, I learned much from this project. It taught me how different shapes, based on their angles/measurements, tessellate, and why others don't.

To a new Geometry student, I would first and foremost tell them to go Digital over Analog. The reasons why digital is better are previously mentioned. I would also tell them how important saving your work is, because it only takes one crash to lose a lifetime's worth of work.