I'm inspired by the paisley and floral pattern in my wife's checkbook cover by designer Vera Bradley. Repetition of line, shape or color can be decorative, add harmony, or create movement or rhythm in a composition. Artists use repetition and pattern to create interest in their paintings. Patterns can be natural or organic, geometric, regular vs. irregular, or man-made. It's also fun to doodle using Zentangles to create your own unique patterns. And, yes, there is organized doodling!
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| Sunflower Center |
Natural or organic patterns may be found in nature, including symmetries, spirals, and fractals, often explained by mathematical principles. Some examples are the spiral of the exterior or interior of a seashell, flowers or the center of a sunflower, and the fur of animals such as leopards' spots. A pineapple is a natural example of a tessellation.
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| Broadway Boogie-Woogie (1942-43), Mondrian |
Irregular patterns are used in the abstract art of Dutch painter Piet Mondrian. I used this example in teaching an art lesson to kindergarteners in which we used colored paper strips to create randomly patterned compositions.
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| Mondrian-inspired LINE Compositions |
Students were limited to the number of strips (5) they could use, but they were allowed to cut them into any number of smaller lengths. They were allowed to overlap to create depth and negative space on the black background. Our discussion was however limited to talking about the art element of LINE. See Kindergarten Art Projects for more ideas.
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| Diamonds by Victor Vasarely |
I tend to use Victor Vasarely and Mark Rothko artwork when teaching about geometric patterns. See my Op & Pop Artists post for more geometric patterns. Such diamond shapes may also help students understand the perspective angles of cubic volumes.
My 5th-graders created their own Op Art using carefully woven strips of contrasting colored paper and wavy lines. These were my own examples.
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| Metamorphosis II (1939-40), Escher |
I love Escher's staircases, which remind me of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I wonder if his work inspired J.K. Rowling.
Another category of patterns is man-made, which may be found in brick walls (~tessellations), buildings, and other architectural elements. I also enjoy seeing wallpaper patterns, though it is a bygone style of interior design that is often considered old-school.
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| Shantavia Beale II (2012), Wiley |
I am in awe of the portraits painted by African American artist Kehinde Wiley. He uses natural and floral patterns as backgrounds for his beautiful portraits. This portrait is from his New Republic Exhibition, which I visited at the Seattle Art Museum in 2016. He has also painted portraits of the Obamas.
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| Floral Study in Gold (1907), Klimt |
Austrian Symbolist Gustav Klimt used pattern to decorate his canvases, often surrounding figures of women and couples like Wiley does today. The spiral symbols evoke the Zentangles of today. His golden phase lasted from 1901-09. His favorite model was Adele Bloch-Bauer, much like Helga Testorf was for Andrew Wyeth.
Andy Warhol, American Pop and Visual Artist, began his portfolio series on the subject of Marilyn Monroe in 1967, in which he repeatedly used the same publicity photo image of the iconic actress. While visiting the Palm Springs Museum of Art (PSAM) in 2018, Warhol's work was being exhibited there. Only the color scheme was varied.
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| Dessert: Harmony in Red (1908), Matisse |
My favorite artist who successfully used pattern is French Fauvist, Henri Matisse. See my 2020 post entitled, Top 15 Paintings that Use Primary Colors -- Red, Yellow, and Blue. Notice how the tablecloth blends into the wallpaper in the background. Now that's taking a decorative element too far! I like it, but imagine living with that red on the walls of your home. You'd always be hungry!
