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Zellige · Line & Light

Twenty prints about how Islamic star patterns are made: compass work, fine gold and ink line, tone-on-tone relief and a great deal of quiet ground, all drawn from true eight-, twelve-, sixteen- and twenty-four-fold geometry.

20 printsPortrait · square · landscape · phoneFree · 300 dpi
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An eight-point star drawn on warm paper with its construction still showing: the circle, the two squares, dashed axes and diagonals running off the edges, wider compass circles and small clay marks where the compass was set.The ConstructionNo. 1
A sixteen-fold rosette drawn in a doubled chalk line on ink, so large that the sheet edges cut it away; only the sixteen-point star at its centre is printed solid, with two circles round the whole.OffcutNo. 2
A framed field of eight-point and four-point stars in a fine doubled gold line on night indigo, inside a double gold rule.Gilt FieldNo. 3
A pointed horseshoe arch in a double ink line stands on a drawn floor line, its opening filled with a fine star lattice; the rest of the sheet is plain bone.The ArchNo. 4
A framed sage sheet of one ink line pattern that starts as a plain lattice of crossing lines at the top and turns into interlocking eight-point stars towards the bottom.ResolveNo. 5
A framed field of eight-point stars and crosses rendered as raised tiles in close tones of bone, set in a deeper stone joint, with light on their upper edges and shade below.Bone ReliefNo. 6
A twelve-point star polygon inside a circle, with the sheet split down the middle into ink on the left and bone on the right and a small solid clay star at the centre.MeridianNo. 7
An ochre sheet with thirteen thin ink circles and two bone twelve-point stars drawn over them, one inside the other, on a vertical centre line with a small compass station above and below.CompassNo. 8
An eight-fold rosette in doubled gold line at the centre of a ruled moss panel, with a quarter of the same rosette set into each corner.Medallion and CornersNo. 9
Three pointed horseshoe arches outlined in bone stand in a row on a floor line across a teal sheet, each filled with the same gold star lattice at a finer scale than the one before.Three WindowsNo. 10
A warm white sheet covered with an even grid of small ink dots, with one round patch of interlocking clay stars drawn in just off centre.Quiet GridNo. 11
A cobalt sheet divided into four framed panels, each showing one stage of drawing an eight-point star: a circle with its axes, one square, the second square, then the finished star filled a shade lighter with a second star turned inside it.Four StagesNo. 12
A sand-coloured sheet with a field of interlaced ink stars rising from the bottom edge and fading out a little over halfway up, leaving the top open.HorizonNo. 13
A round window framed by three thin ink rings sits on a rose clay sheet, and inside it is a dark field of fine bone-coloured twelve-point stars.OculusNo. 14
A twenty-four-point rosette in clay, with pale clay petals around a solid star, sits in the lower right corner with only a quarter of it on the sheet; around it sand rings, spaced wider and wider, and straight radii spread across the paper.RippleNo. 15
A framed field of eight-point stars, petals and smaller four-point stars rendered as raised tiles in tones of terracotta, lit from the upper left, with no line and no second colour.Clay ReliefNo. 16
A framed stone-coloured sheet covered with a moss-green lattice of eight-point stars and crosses set on the diagonal, each line drawn as a band with two edges.LatticeNo. 17
A dark sheet with a faint grid of octagons and squares everywhere, and a diagonal band from lower left to upper right where the eight-point star pattern is drawn in gold.RevealedNo. 18
A sixteen-fold rosette in raised black pieces on a black sheet, shown by a gilt light along the upper edges of each piece and shadow below, inside a thin gold circle.Ink ReliefNo. 19
Seven eight-point stars nested one inside the next, getting smaller towards the centre, drawn in one moss line on bone inside a thin sand circle.NestedNo. 20
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