Another exciting thing we learned at Lisa Bardot‘s painting and Procreate workshop last week: Designimg tiles! Azulejos as the tiles are called in Portugal. And they are typically adorned in and outside buildings, as a reflection of the country’s history, culture and identity. Naturally, Lisa was keen to integrate this in this workshop!
Cutting Origami
Before we begin the real stuff though, Lisa wanted to demonstrate on paper the concept of symmetry, which is the basis of the azulejos designs.. We were each given pieces of blue origami paper from which we would create our own tile design. First fold the paper in half diagonally, then repeat again, then another time till the paper is folded three times. Then we cut out shapes from the folded edges….
Cut & Paste
And once done, the paper is opened up to reveal the cutouts repeated symmetrically. How cool is that! In this case, the symmetry is radial since the shapes are arranged around a central axis as opposed to bilateral symmetry where the halves would be identical to each other through a single line. The cut paper was then glued onto our sketchbooks as were the cut pieces below or above it to illustrate how the tiles would be typically designed.
And what fun that was! Brought back memories of my happy childhood. It was like being in primary school again! And now, we will be applying this radial symmetry to come up with tile designs on Procreate! Coming up next…
My Kawaii Quarter 