Escher Projects

Escher Projects

I have always been fascinated by the works of the Dutch artist, M.C.Escher.  Combining this fascination with my limited skills of woodworking and adding in the time given me by retiring in 1999 I have attempted a few projects.  I started with Mosaic I, a plane filling, non-repetitive tessellation.  I photocopied the drawing, blew it up to a convenient size and then used carbon paper  to trace it on to the wood.  After scroll sawing the pieces, the adjacent edges had to be trimmed with a Dremel to make them fit. After that the Dremel was used to create the details. When the figures were completed I made a tray with a sliding Plexiglas top to hold them together.  It is fun when guests try to reassemble the pieces without looking at the Escher original

MOSAIC I
10" x 13"
Oak and  black walnut

I tried for better accuracy on Mosaic II by cutting out the individual pieces from the photocopy and gluing them on the wood instead of using carbon paper.  That worked much better but the thin legs of some of the animals got out alignment when gluing and that led to some inaccuracy.  In fact the long legs of the "ostrich" that straddles the guitar were so far off I had to make a second "ostrich".  Because the growth lines on the oak were so hard to work with I switched to birch for this one.

MOSAIC II
10" x 11.5"
Birch and black walnut

A most ambitious project was Verbum. This piece represents Creation.  The void black and white hexagon in the center morphs into black and white land, sea, and air (represented by frogs, fish, and birds).  Crossing diagonally one can morph (Escher uses "metamorphoses") frogs into birds, birds into fish, fish into frogs and any other combination.  Follow a white figure around the edge and you will morph from bird to fish to frog and back again; do the same with the black figures.  I had to make the figures big enough to work with but small enough so the completed work would not take up a whole wall.  I ended up photocopying to produce an hexagonal piece that measures 23" on a diagonal.  For accuracy I rough cut each piece out of paper, glued it on the wood and then scroll sawed around the edges. Because of the complexity and the number of pieces (142), after completing the pieces they were glued to a piece of 1/4" plywood. A walnut trim around the edges completed the project.

VERBUM
Hexagon, 23" diagonal
Birch and black walnut

This circular piece was made as a thank you gift for a friend who gave us an Escher throw rug. It is part of a three element tessellation by Escher.  The red wood is from a piece I picked up in Costa Rica.  I don't know what type of wood it is.  The frame is oak. Celia liked it so much I made one for her.  The neighbor boy likes to put it together upside down!

BIRD, FISH, LIZARD
Circle, 8" diameter
Birch, black walnut, ???, oak

 This project is different from the others.  Here the pieces are all cut out of the same piece of plywood.  Naturally everything fits together perfectly.  The only challenge was to make them fit snugly in the frame.
Painting was the tedious (but enjoyable) part.  The title, SUN & MOON, indicated night and day.  You can see the moon, stars, comets, etc on the blue, dark birds and the sun with its red and yellow rays on the white, light birds. The rays were very hard to paint.  I used two strips of blue painters tape for each ray.  I had to do many rays over and over again because of bleeding or inaccuracy.  It is a good challenge to reassemble this puzzle.  The shapes and the ray directions are the hints.

SUN & MOON
8" x 8"
Painted plywood

I have some ideas for more Escher projects...............AH!  Retirement, where is thy sting???!!!