sacred geometry

Ever since we visited the Alhambra in Spain, we've been obsessed with the patterns of Islamic tradition. The calculation and creation of these mathematically precise patterns was a mystery to us. 

Tile pattern from the Alhambra,
from AlhambradeGranada.org

Mom is a master of freehand geometrical drawing, as you can see from her mandalas. My work is not nearly as precise, so I wanted some guidance.

Samira Mian is a former maths teacher and Muslim geometer who teaches various workshops on the geometry of different Islamic cultures. Her teachings are a great combination of math, history and art, and she has many YouTube videos as well as several workshops on Islamic geometry.

My first workshop was on Mughal patterns taken from locations like the Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal in India. The class used compasses and rulers on bond and tracing paper to create that iconic hexagonal pattern.

Then we transferred our pencil designs by fastening the tracing paper face down onto watercolour paper and rubbing it with the edge of a spoon, doing this a few times until we had a repeating pattern.

We also learned a square tile pattern with an eight-pointed star. After transferring to watercolour paper, we picked a colour scheme and started painting with watercolours and metallic paints. I love bronze and turquoise, and they go so well with lemon yellow.

A strange thing happened to my first design - I transferred the pattern with one row short, so instead of many regular hexagons, I got a strange polygonal pattern with rotating cubes around a central hexagon. 

The end result looked more like a science diagram than ornamental art, but I had a great time trying to figure out how it happened. And it looks good in bright tropical colours.

My second class was about the patterns of Andalusia, based on designs from the Alhambra, the Palacio Real in Seville and the mosque of Cordoba.

 These designs are even more intricate - we did a lot of work just for one-fourth of the full pattern.

Samira even showed us how to draw the special weaving outlines that form many Islamic designs. 

All in all we finished the class with not two but five new patterns. We also gained a new appreciation for the art of mathematics, and the ancient Muslim masters who created this sacred geometry.