Arts Explorer #4: Spot the Pattern

Pattern is everywhere! From where you are sitting look up and count the number of patterns you see.... 16 from my living room couch (and that was a quick scan too).  After that little introduction I think you can probably guess what my art word of the week is...

ART WORD OF THE WEEK: The element of PaTtErN

Schirrmacher and Fox (2009) describe pattern as something that “suggests regularity and repetition”.  This week for our GoBlog Assignment I decided to take my camera with me wherever I went last Saturday and take pictures of the most interesting “regularity and repetition” I could find.

My weekend started at home, eager to start the assignment I went for a walk around my house and found a huge amount of patterns.  Many more than I had anticipated!  Throughout the day I went shopping with my mom, to my brother’s semi-final hockey game (they won) and a walk around my neighbourhood.  Not the most exciting Saturday, but I didn’t have to go far to find an abundance of patterns!  The two photographs below are what I found.



Schirrmacher and Fox (2009) also describes the benefits of patterns for children as they can use them to “enrich their artwork... (and) will also facilitate learning in the curricular areas of math and reading” (p.142).  When I was working in a grade 1&2 class at a local public school a few years back I was working with a child who was having a difficult time grasping the concept of patterns.  He did, however, love art.  I realised the teacher and I had been approaching patterns from a very mathematical point of view so I grabbed some tangrams and found a spot of the floor.  The two of us together used tangrams to create a huge piece of artwork.  The trick?  The only way we could create lines was to use patterns!  The child and I started with simple two symbol patterns and continued to become more and more complex.  We took turn starting the patterns and I watched as he slowly grasped the concept that in order to continue a pattern you must look at what has already been established.  This activity did not miraculously fix his difficulty but because I tied it to something he loved, art, and allowed him to create a picture with the tangrams, he was much more willing to understand and try.  

THE PICTURES ARE AS FOLLOWED: (1st Picture) Blinds from my kitchen, tiles from the front enterance table, decoration from the wall in my kitchen and a ceiling fan and light from the bedroom.

(2nd Picture) A wheel from the car, a criss-cross fence, a close of up a drain, cans at the grocery store, a light in from the parkinglot, red tiles from the outside of a Wendys, tiles from the neighbors house, and tiles from our backyard.

Patterns give consistency but they are also a lot of fun and they really are everywhere!

Art and creative development for young children (6th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Delmar.

Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009).