A Final Coloring Book of Tessellations

Available from Amazon.

From the Introduction:

he title of this book, A Final Coloring Book of Tessellations, implies that it has predecessors. There are in fact four. Two of them were offshoots of a series of maze books. I found a way to produce computer-generated mazes that used specially designed typefaces to display the mazes. One type of pattern that makes visually attractive mazes is a tessellation pattern. A Tessellating Coloring Book (2012) and The Tessellating Alphabet Coloring Book (2012) were attempts to reach an audience that might be interested in the tessellations but not the mazes. The first had a collection of both abstract and Escher-like tessellations and the second featured tessellating letters of the alphabet.

In 2015 I began to focus on the tessellations themselves rather than seeing them only as fodder for making mazes. A first step was to classify my tessellations patterns into the categories that mathematicians have devised. Exploring Tessellations: A Journey through Heesch Types and Beyond (2015) recounts what I have learned on this adventure. Although it does not have the complexity of a mathematics book, it goes beyond what is offered in most other books intended for the general public. Three books were spun out of this book. More Tessellations: A Coloring Book (2015) is similar to A Tessellating Coloring Book in the kind of tessellations included. Delightful Designs: A Coloring Book of Magical Patterns (2015) uses two or more tile shapes to tile the plane rather than just one. Finally, Exploring Symmetry Coloring Book (2015) does not contain any tessellations but rather has designs that illustrate the 17 symmetry classes that are fundamental to understanding tessellations.

In the year since the publication of More Tessellations: A Coloring Book, I have found additional tessellation designs. They could be used to update existing books by replacing designs that are weaker with stronger ones, but it is more fun to design a new book. In addition, the previous coloring books were done before I was aware of the adult coloring fad of 2015 so they were designed with children as the target audience. That meant that the tiles are quite large to avoid tight little spaces that would be hard to color with a crayon. Even though the adult coloring fad may have run its course, I wanted to do one book that might appeal to those who want intricate and challenging details. Note that CreateSpace, which prints this book, does not provide some of the features that serious adult colorers want, such has heavy paper and perforated pages.

The book has 108 pages because of the way that CreateSpace charges fees. The cost of printing a book of 40 pages or 80 pages or 108 pages is the same because there is a set fee for 108 pages or less. Beyond 108 pages there is an additional cost per page. Hence, it seems wasteful not to use all 108 pages. If you see some designs that look weak, it may be that they were included to get to 108 pages. (Or the page may illustrate something that might interest those who study tessellations.)

Will this actually be my final coloring book of tessellations? Perhaps, because as I stumble on additional patterns (I highly recommend the program Tesselmaniac! for those interested in finding their own patterns), I can use the better discoveries to update and revise this and the previous books.

The final page of the book gives the classification of the tessellations for readers interested in the technical details of how each tiling is formed.

I apologize in advance for errors that remain in the book.

Robert Schenk
October 2016

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