M C Escher was born in The Netherlands and died in 1972. He was a famous graphic artist and created numerous symmetrical designs, among other art forms. After viewing many of his designs, we decided to make our own tesselations. Tesselations are shapes that completely fill the page with no gaps and no overlap. We wanted to make tesselating ghosts.
Materials: Thin cardboard for the template, paper, pencil and markers.
Draw a wavy line across the top of your cardboard, this is the ghost’s head. Cut it out and trace it along the bottom of the cardboard. This is the bottom part of the ghost.
Now draw a hand near the top of the ghost on the side. Cut it out and tape it to the other side near the bottom. When your ghosts connect, they’ll do so on an angle. If you want them to be side by side, make sure your second hand is directly across from the first.
Use your template to draw the tesselations.
With a marker color in your ghosts, alternating between colored ghosts and ghosts with only an outline. You might want to make a light tick with a pencil on the ones you need to color in fully because it can get confusing after coloring for a bit.
The end result should look like a checkerboard full of ghosts. Jaylene made hers all different colors, they’re a rainbow ghost family. We’re interested in seeing if anyone can come up with tesselating pumpkins or witch’s hats or other holiday designs. Be sure to let us know if you make some.
19 comments
Comments feed for this article
October 27, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Michelle@NaturesWayLearning
I love Tesselations! Great project. I like how they all have different expressions.
October 27, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Explore Academy
Great project! We did something similar last year. Very fun!
October 28, 2008 at 12:55 am
Helena
Ooh, neat! Escher is so cool. 🙂
October 28, 2008 at 1:32 am
Heather
You have always got the coolest crafts. I have got to try this. Thanks for sharing.
October 28, 2008 at 3:01 am
Shawna
Oh I haven’t done tesselations in forever. What a fantastic idea! (and ghosts! fun!)
October 28, 2008 at 3:35 am
Linds
Once again a great idea! I love MC Escher’s work!
October 28, 2008 at 5:18 am
Heather T.
I *love* Escher, and I love your tesselation project. So cool!
October 28, 2008 at 6:25 am
Dawn
I love it! We did tesselations in my class one year, but not such cute little ghosts! How fun!
October 28, 2008 at 7:55 am
Suzerella
Looks good!
October 28, 2008 at 9:46 am
Michie
I have just learned about tesselations myself recently – you learn something new all the time working in elementary school! I love your ghosts!
October 28, 2008 at 11:57 am
Gerky
Wow! That is great! Putting that one in my list of things to do.
October 30, 2008 at 1:22 am
Cam
😀
October 30, 2008 at 4:26 am
Rachel
This is such a great idea! I’ll be linking to this!
October 30, 2008 at 10:32 am
Dana
Oh, that is a wonderful idea!!! We might have to “steal” this from you. 🙂
October 30, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Jessica
Wow these are really neat. I had never heard of Tesselations before, but it is definitely something we are going to have to try.
November 1, 2008 at 6:18 am
Cat
Wonderful! We tried it this morning.
November 2, 2008 at 12:41 pm
donna
I HAVE BEEN AN ART TEACHER FOR 23 YEARS. I HAVE TAUGHT TESSELATIONS TO MIDDLE SCHOOL KIDS. THIS IS A GREAT LESSON FOR TEACHING TESSELATIONS TO YOUNGER KIDS. WONDERFUL IDEA! THANK YOU!
January 7, 2011 at 9:46 pm
France
oh cool i love escher’s stuff.
February 5, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Amazing M.C. « Buntblume
[…] TeachKidsArt > Julie K in Taiwan > It’s a Boy’s […]