8 fold pattern

I’ve been doing quite a lot of my designs from a book called Islamic Geometric Patterns by Eric Broug. It’s not necessarily very highly rated by those who know about these things but it has been great starting out with that. I’ve also been scouring the internet for material and my favourite place is probably Samira Mian’s website. From there, I found out about Sandy Kurt, another artist and teacher and this time my efforts are from one of the free PDFs on her website.

The pattern is described as an 8 fold pattern from the Ahmad Ibn Tulun, Cairo, Egypt. Looking around the internet it’s a pattern that is quite familiar…in fact I think I may even have seen it in the V&A in London.

• Ibn Tulun; Lajin’s Minbar on Drawing Islamic Geometric Designs
• Course Pack – The Minbar of Ibn Tulun – a course by artist Adam Williamson

Anyway, I downloaded the PDF and got cracking.

I drew on A3 watercolour paper as I wanted to colour in watercolours. I’m glad I did it this big as it was quite an intricate construction (for me). It took me just a bit over 2 hours to draw out. It was quite straightforward but, as usual, my little inconsistencies crept in here and there. It was enjoyable to do though and didn’t involve tracing and tiling which I’ve been doing a lot of recently.

In my last effort, I used watercolours from tubes. This time I used watercolours from pans…or rather half pans. I’ve got a nice set of Winsor and Newton watercolours in a good range of colours so I initially chose 3 colours to go with. Once I started painting, I ended up using a 4th colour.

I’m still very much trying to get to grip with my watercolour technique. I think I need to be a little more confident and a little freer. I have a tendency to be a bit uneven as I can be too hesitant with the colours. I need to let things go a bit more and be a bit less afraid of getting things too wet. I’m not that unhappy with what I’ve managed to do though. I am really drawn to shades of turquoise and orange is a favourite colour.

I like this pattern and I’d be quite keen to give it another go and leave more white…perhaps only using the 3 colours I originally planned.