I’ve been involved in paper recycling for a long time, but this idea has only just come up in connection with making bowls using the winding technique, and there is usually some sort of geometric pattern at the bottom of these bowls.
Yesterday I started making discs of different sizes to make crystal structure or sacred geometric shapes out of them.
The dimensions are of course not accurate, but this is permissible as I wrapped the paper sticks by hand and they are not completely regular. The experience of success, however, inspired me. I can build irregular structures as well as regular ones. The only rule is that the discs should be in contact with each other everywhere except at the edge of the shape. If a gap is appeared somewhere, the size of the disc needs to be changed, usually only to a very small extent. Now I only dealt with the regular coverage of the flat surface, with several types of symmetry. But I'll be moving to spatial surfaces soon, be it a sphere, a cone or even a saddle surface.
This is where mathematics meets art. Mathematics is a system of rules, but it is sterile in itself, and art fills it with the soul.
Well, let's see the patterns I've created, from the simple to the complex.
These are easy-to-duplicate patterns:
More complex:
Even more complex:
The number of theoretical possibilities is endless. I also plan to create aperiodic structures (a kind of Penrose-tiling), only the exact proportions of the disks need to be determined.