Six Pointed Decorative Stars

This pattern is one of a number that feature what I think of as a circle of squares. You get different types of pattern depending on how many squares you include in your design, and you could adapt the instructions for this pattern to make other circles with different numbers of squares depending on how many segments you divide your initial circle into.

This six pointed star and the biomorphic decorations came from a pattern resource book I’ve referred to a few times. It’s Franz Sales Meyer’s ‘A Handbook of Ornament’ and it’s available at the Internet Archive. This design is on page 255, plate 156.

Following the reference back one stage further, Meyer refers to this as a pattern documented by Emile Prisse d’Avennes as an 18th Century ceiling painting. Looking for this pattern in Emile Prisse D’Avennes’ work led me to spend a good few hours looking through his documentation of the art of Cairo and though I didn’t find this particular pattern, I was incredibly inspired by the precision and attention to detail in the lithographies he produced. (You’ll need an account to ‘borrow’ this book from the internet archive library.)

Members should find downloadable outlines for the structure of this pattern (as drawn in video 1 this month), and a full outline with all the detail for tracing or print and painting.

This month I’ve split the project into 3 videos. The first is how to draw the underlying structure and pencil in the biomorphic designs. The second shares the process for inking the outline from your sketch. The third is painting this project in watercolour.