Introduction to Islamic Geometric Design
- 2 hours on-demand video
- 8 downloadable resources
- Full lifetime access
- Access on mobile and TV
- Certificate of Completion
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Try Udemy for Business- By the end of this course, you will be able to draw four Islamic geometric patterns
- In this course, you will learn about the crucial role of grids in Islamic geometric design
- In this course, you will learn about fourfold and sixfold geometric patterns
- By the end of this course, you will be able to better understand how Islamic geometric patterns are constructed
- In this course, you will learn the techniques used by craftsmen to embellish patterns
- No prior knowledge required
- You will need a ruler (straightedge), a pencil and a felt tip marker. You might also need an eraser..
- I provide PDF templates for this course, which you should print out for a few of the lectures
This course will enable you to make patterns and to learn to understand Islamic geometric compositions. You will only need a ruler/straight edge, a pencil and a marker to make these patterns. You won't have to make any calculations, just follow my step by step instructions and you will be amazed at what you can create, using the same design techniques Islamic craftsmen have used for centuries. I will also show how to tessellate patterns in an efficient way and, importantly, how to embellish patterns. Islamic geometric design is not just about drawing patterns with black lines. What you do to the patterns after you have drawn them, how you make them more beautiful is a very important part of using your personal creativity. I will show some techniques and styles that have been used over the centuries in different part of the Islamic world to make geometric compositions more beautiful.
- Creative people
- Design students
- Architecture students
- Architects
- Designers
What I hope you will learn in this course: how to make patterns, how to develop a more profound appreciation of the beauty of Islamic geometric design, techniques craftsmen used to embellish patterns, and hopefully you will want to keep learning about this design tradition
Using examples from Islamic art and architecture, we look at what creates the enormous diversity of compositions in Islamic geometric design.
Even though geometric compositions in Islamic art and architecture can often seem very complex, they all use the same rules. These rules are relatively simple. Craftsmen used these design principles to enable them to make compositions and we can use them for the same purpose. Understanding these principles and recognising how they work in a composition, helps us construct but also de-construct compositions. The examples in this lecture all from Agra in India.
The fourfold pattern whose method of construction is shown in this lecture, can be found across many regions and eras of the Islamic world. It is especially good as a pattern for beginners but also as a pattern that you can embellish once all the lines have been drawn. A PDF template can be downloaded that already has the construction lines of the first step of the design sequence for this pattern
The fourfold pattern whose method of construction is shown in this lecture, can be found across many regions and eras of the Islamic world. It is a very common and recognisable pattern with a central eightpointed star, surrounded by eight 'petals'. The step-by-step instructions show how sometimes construction lines have to be drawn solely in order to create intersections for other construction lines. A PDF template can be downloaded that already has the construction lines of the first step of the design sequence for this pattern.
In the previous two lectures (5 and 6) we learnt how to make patterns that fit in a square. The next step is to tessellate these patterns to make a complete composition. This lecture shows you some tricks and principles that will help you create a composition efficiently, by keeping to a minimum the number of times you have to draw the same pattern. Two PDF's are provided that allow you to use the same grid of four squares as is used in the lecture.
The Ben Youssef madrasa in Marrakech is one of the masterpieces of Islamic architecture. It was built in the late 16th century and was named after a Marinid ruler, although it was built after the reign of the Marinids. Many of its floors and walls, as well as wooden panels are decorated with an enormous variety of geometric patterns, almost all of them fourfold patterns. To visit it is a visually overwhelming experience: the beauty of the decoration and of the building, the peacefulness of it in the middle of the bustling old center of Marrakech, it is hard to compare it with anything else. This video gives you a tour of the madrasa, focussing of course on the fourfold patterns.
The sixfold pattern whose method of construction is shown in this lecture, can be found across many regions and eras of the Islamic world. It is essentially a pattern of overlapping hexagons. In this lecture it is shown on a horizontal band of ceramic tiles on the shrine of Bibi Jawindi in Uch, Pakistan. A PDF template can be downloaded that already has the construction lines of the first step of the design sequence for this pattern.
This sixfold star pattern can be found (amongst others) on the famous wooden mihrab from the shrine of Sayyida Ruqayya (1133) in Cairo, Egypt.The star itself is familiar sixpointed star which, when tessellated in a grid of hexagons, becomes an effective sixfold pattern that is especially suited for embellishment. A PDF template can be downloaded that already has the construction lines of the first step of the design sequence for this pattern
In the previous two lectures (9 and 10) we learnt how to make patterns that fit in an hexagon. The next step is to tessellate these patterns to make a complete composition. This lecture shows you some tricks and principles that will help you create a composition efficiently, by keeping to a minimum the number of times you have to draw the same pattern. Two PDF's are provided that allow you to experiment with a grid of hexagons.
A successful geometrical composition is more than just a pattern drawn with single lines. In this course, all the examples from Islamic art and architecture show that what makes a composition beautiful, is the way it is embellished. In this lecture you will learn a few effective techniques to turn your line drawing into a more accomplished and interesting composition.