Tessellations by Tiles

Origami tessellations are designed by making choices about what twist will be used in each of the shapes in a tiling.

Tessellations by Tiles is designed to help you see the abstract tilings that describe origami tessellations and the properties of those tilings that can be used for planning projects, folding tessellations, and designing new tessellations.

This course is for you if you want to go beyond folding the patterns available in video tutorials to folding from crease patterns and pursuing your own origami tessellation design style.

This course includes:

• 24 workshops that each include a description of a tiling, a folding exercise, and a design exercise
• Supporting files showing abstracted folding progressions, symmetry positions, and design choices as well as crease pattern template files
• A library of over 150 crease patterns in the tilings taught with photos and alignment properties
• Continuous support through private course Discord channels and monthly live office hours

From My Students:

"Don't miss this opportunity to take your folding to a whole new level. It's a transformative experience, ALL your origami skills will be upgraded, how you look at diagrams will change. One of the side bonuses is when you look at Instagram (or other posted photos) you will start being able to figure out how the tessellations were done. When I first started doing origami, more than 25 years ago I remember the joy of learning a new fold and completing harder and harder models, TBT is just like that, starting anew and discovering new ways of folding and the thrill of accomplishing tessellations that seemed impossible. Tessellations are REALLY HARD to learn on your own, the few books that exist are confusing and really frustrating, TBT changes that, Madonna is a wonderful teacher: calm, patient and supremely supportive. She guides you into growth and gently leads you to discovery." - Mary D

"I think it’s helped my overall folding and understanding of steps. I think I’ve gotten faster at creasing without crunching the paper and I’ve noticed, even like when [Madonna has] been helping me with stuff and it’ll be misshapen or off-center and I’ll say that’s good enough, I’ll keep going because what I’ll find is after a few more minutes that’ll all even out and I’ll do just fine. I’m not going to wait with the class to get it perfectly aligned. When I do the second or third one I can improve it at that point, when I’m working on my own." - Nancy S

"I am finding .. I folded something just for fun, and I am looking at everything a little differently. I don’t just start folding - I’m looking: Can I see anything, does anything make sense, is there anything going on. ... it’s generalizing into how I go about folding. ... I taught [a figurative model] this week after looking at the diagram myself. It had a sink in it and some people had never done a sink before. It was smooth as silk because I understood the pattern - even though it was new to me, and that’s a big piece of what I was hoping to get from this experience, just looking at and understanding the diagram or the crease pattern better, rather than just bullying my way through. ... I’m really pleased with that and I want more." - Andrea P