Tessellated Art Tutorial

Bored out of your mind in lock down hell?

Here is a little something that will waste and hour or two and give you something pretty to hang on your wall. A suitable art project for both kids and adults.

In my work as a surface designer I have been experimenting with creating shapes that tessellate, designing patterns produced from a single shape so that there are no overlaps or gaps. The simplest shape that tessellates is a square but that’s a bit boring for me.

Here is a far jazzier shape I created, that tessellates perfectly.

and you can use this shape to produce a stunning piece of art.

Start by downloading the free shape

tessellated-surf-shape Download

Print it out and carefully cut out.

Then use your template to draw around and create a tile effect. You can use any sort of paper – I used watercolor paper. Then color away. I used watercolor paint but you could use colored pencils, crayons, fill each shape with glue and break out the glitter, be imaginative!

The shape conjured up waves on a rough sea in my mind, so I painted each shape a different shade of blue using little darker shade towards the bottom to create some depth. I wasn’t particularly neat with my painting and just chucked the paint on but the effect is quite pleasing!