Color Creates Pattern
Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 07:58PM
Jeff Field

Wallpaper consists of a regular patterned array that covers a flat surface with no gaps.  Wallpaper patterns are composed from a motif that is repeated in various ways to make a larger pattern or multiple patterns that are the wallpaper's prominent feature.  The way color is applied to the motif affects the larger patterns.  I colored the following pattern template in six different ways.  The outcome is a set of wallpapers that look as if they were made from different motifs.  

 The Pattern Template:  

 

Six Distinct Patterns Made By Coloring The Pattern Template

 

There is almost no hint in W1 of W2's blue trefoil pattern.  In W1 the trefoil's lobes are colored orange. The eye sees them as part of the design of the outer portion of W1's large circular yellow forms.  In W2 almost all the various forms of W1 are masked by coloring them uniformly with a light yellow-orange, so that what was figure in W1 becomes ground in W2.  The blue trefoils stand out clearly against their ground.

W1                                                                      W2

 

In W3 the blue six-pointed stars are linked together by blue lines.  The stars and their connecting lines form triangles and hexagons.  In W4 stars dwell at the centers of the circular patterns that emerge as the wallpaper's primary design. 

W3                                                                    W4

 

W5 and W6 appear so different that it would be hard to extract their common template.

W5                                                                      W6

 

 

Article originally appeared on Simple Complexities (http://fractalfield.squarespace.com/).
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