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Bruce Bilney’s Trompe L’oeil Art Page |
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Clones
A Vision of Huxley’s Brave New World’s Cloning Tank for Boys and Girls. [ But I don’t think this will ever be done: Making them at home is too much fun! ]
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Swans
Northern Swans are snowy white: Australia’s are black as night. The two are complementary As ivory and ebony!
This tile exhibits counterchange: - Background & Foreground keep switching - ( forever!). |
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Black Dog
Most Dogs are Best Friends to their Masters, But one Dog is a pain: The Black Dog of Depression When it’s Master of your Brain!
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SeaHorses
Escher Himself did twinned SeaHorses: (They can only go Up and Down.) I bet he’d love to watch these six Spinning ’round’n’around’n’around! |
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Holly~Oak
At Christmas Holly’s jolly, but it’s very very prickly: If you sit on a bit of it, I bet you get up quickly! But the Oak Leaf’s edge is scalloped, and so these 2 leaves make love: The prickles fit the scallops just as fingers fit a glove! |
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? . . . “Tessellation” . . ?
Tessellation really just means tiling - (as in bathroom). It is one of the oldest skills in the development of civilizations everywhere.
But a Dutch artist, Maurits C. Escher, (1899-1972) gave the term new heights of meaning by creating tiles which are animal shapes. Nobody had ever done that before!
I was instantly enchanted in 1969 by his Sky and Water, in black-&-white . Outlines of ducks and fishes conspire with their neighbours’, defining both themselves and the other animal simultaneously.
Later I found that Escher had done many more tessellating designs: Bull-Dogs, Horsemen, Sea-Horses, and also many fanciful and even grotesque ones: Gargoyles, winged Unicorns, demons and suchlike. (I’m not so keen on the latter: I like the ones that look “real”, and I’ve concentrated on them.)
For Copyright reasons I can’t show you Escher’s own designs, but on the Net you may find many of them just by searching for - escher !
* * * Even though many people are fascinated by Escheresque tessellations nowadays, few manage to create very many good ones. Some have done a few decent ones, but there is a scarcity of real stunners. They are so devilishly difficult to do, that perhaps there never will be many.
Anyway, since earliest childhood I have loved the depiction of a leaping Red Kangaroo on our old Penny coins. I used to doodle little mobs of stick-figure Penny ’roos jumping along. One day I “saw” a map of Australia in the gap between neighbouring kangaroos. So was created OZZIE the Magic Kangaroo, surely one of the most-remarkably-happy iconcatenations ever. For Australians, the map and the Kangaroo are the images most commonly understood as denoting Australianness.
OZZIE was my first proper tessellation, and his strength has motivated and empowered me, - (goaded and bullied me, more like it!) - ever since, to do more.
At the time, though, I had no idea that tessellations were of interest to mathematicians, and in crystallography, virology, and some other sciences.
But OZZIE the Magic Kangaroo kept whispering ideas into my brain, and my Muse kept me doodling, until now I have managed to tessellate lots of animals, including many of OZZIE’s own Aussie friends: Okey Koala, Plato Platypus and Katie Cockatoo, for example - and many other creatures too, as diverse and wonderful as Elephants and Leafy Sea-Dragons.
My Muse also badgers me into writing rhyming verse about my designs. I’m not claiming that either the verse or the graphics are deep and meaningful: but they are in the end for the eternal delight of You, my fellow Humans.
May You fall in love with OZZIE and his friends, and spread their legend on wings of Eagles!
Ozzigami’s recommended hop@link Sites www.frog.co.nz & www.artgame.com http://www.cromp.com/tess/home.html http://forum.swarthmore.edu/sum95/suzanne/links.html
Don’t forget to come back to www.ozzigami.com.au
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Magic DragonsBeing splotched so as not to get spotted – That, of course, is camouflage; If you’re small it is smart not to show any part - That way you may stay at large! Chameleon Lizards are cosmetic wizards, in See-if-you-can-see-me skins, But the smartest of camouflage artist’s the Leafy Sea-Dragon, with tessellate fins!
This fantastic little creature is the Marine Faunal Emblem of South Australia, my home State. My design does it scant justice. |
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TwoRoos in Black-&-White . . .
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Scorpion Dance
If you think Humans are the only ones with trouble dating, Just watch the scary meeting dance we Scorpions do when mating! You may very often find us underneath a big flat stone, But we’re frightened, more than deadly, so please, just leave us alone!
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SeaHorse Love
Sea-Horses are true marvels! Did you know they mate for life? Sea-Mare gives eggs to Sea-Stallion, Then he becomes Sea-Wife! And every day the pair link tails, Each Sea-Horse Him and Her, And promenade the sea-floor In a stately pas de deux!
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Sea Creatures
How many creatures can you find? I’m sure you’ll find some Crabs, Clams, Volute Shells, and Nautilus, And blue Flat-Fish like Dabs; But the loveliest creatures of them all Are hiding from your eyes: Sea-Horses, dressed as other life-forms - What a neat disguise! |
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Grape Vines
Round and ripe, cool, crisp and sweet Fresh from off the vine - Blue-black, juicy, what a treat! - Later comes red wine!
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Wall Flowers
Tessellations are “wallpaper patterns”, So the wall-paperest pattern of all, On papers and silks and on satins, Must be Wall-Flowers, wall-to-wall!
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Quantum ~Leap» Tessell~anim~ation
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We don’t just bounce on the spot! “Follow” any one Kangaroo, e.g., the yellow one, from left to right at the bottom, to see continuous movement. Can you follow us all the way as we abruptly turn 180°, and go zig-zagging right up the Kangaroo cliff-face? |
Tess-ElephantsWe’re Tess, the First Cloned Elephants: Just do a “double take”:- Six blind wise men touched us - then cried - “Bus!”- “Rope!”- “Tree!”-“Fan!”-“Spear!”….“NO ! - SNAKE !” Men call themselves homo sapiens - in self-congratulation! - But we Elephants are ho-ho-happy’uns, in a state of Tess-Elation! |
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Heliphant 3-Elephant Hexagonal Tile |
Cockerel and ChookIt may seem this is farmyard bliss,but take a closer look: -A Battle of the Sexes this, ’twixt Cockerel and Chook! He is hen-pecked - She’s down-trodden - but there’s no cause for alarm: Though their attitudes aren’t modern, they love Tessellation Farm!
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OZZIE and Friends OZZIE the Magic Kangaroo has many Bushland friends: All of them are precious, and every one depends On how we Humans treat them: for Life’s sake, Aussies, care! So many native species lost, so many very rare! . . .
If you would like to read some more of Brucie Bilby’s verse, Some of it that children will find great fun to rehearse, Check out our Fun Verse Page now, (but come back when you’ve done!) Bilby Verse is educative, interesting, and fun!
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Aussie Rules O.K?
The World regards Australians as sports-mad bloody fools, And the football game we’re mad on is called Aussie Bloody Rules! High marks, long kicks, hard tackling are the order of the day, And Australian Alpha Males will tell you, Aussie Rules - O.K.?! |
PlatypusWhen there’s only one of something, there’s just one word too: “Unique!” - But just you suss a Platypus, that word is ’way too weak! Plus, ornithorhyncus paradoxus tessellates so well! - With twin heads he’s the Push~Me~Pull~You Platypus from Hell!
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CockatoosThere’s Corellas and Cockies, Black and White, Grey Gang-Gang – Pink Galah – But Major Mitchell Cockatoo is Polly Superstar : A breast that glows in velvet rose - Wings satin, silver-pearled - With crest aflame, he shrieks his claim: I’m Glory of the World! |
