People mean very different things by Natural Patterns, and the sites which offer such things are (happily) completely unlike each other. Here is a small list of some (index) sites which I have visited and liked. I would like to have an index purely to Natural Patterns, but there still seem to be very few of these: most sites have a few Natural images mixed up with lots of other things, such as Wallpapers, Backgrounds, Tilings, Tessellations, and not-necessarily-natural Graphics. If you hear of any good places (including your own), let me know!
T. Zelkas' tile-a-day website offers sets of matching tiles, harmonious in colour and subtle in pattern. Some of them are based on my natural patterns, as Zelkas writes:
"Oh, my goodness. Whip out your bookmarks right now, PatternHogs, because I have a doozy for you. Ian Alexander's Natural Patterns, Wallpapers & Backgrounds Library is a huge treasure box of a site. You could lose yourself for days in here, browsing among patterns drawn from almost every aspect of the physical world and ranging from fantastically complex to divinely, elegantly simple.
The collection is great eye candy for anyone interested in nature, math or patterns, and if you are looking for repeating tiles you'll find many that are ready to use and many that will do as wonderful starting points for making your own. (Here's one set I made from this amazing cabbage spiral pattern)."
The Directory of Art in Suffolk is an extensive list of web resources around the world; nice to see that this site has a place there. The list is eclectic -- everything from graphics tools to CD-Roms, art galleries to dictionaries and art teaching resources. Mind you, if a site has to be about art to be on the list and this site is about natural patterns, the question arises: is Nature Art? Discuss (in less than 64,000 words).
The Geometry Junkyard is a wonderful place for Penrose Tilings and other mathematical patterns, some quite bizarre but all fascinating.
The Math Quilt site is a beautiful and extraordinary place.
Bill Bonner's beautiful tour of the Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park. Sounds limiting? Bill has constructed pages of lovely natural patterns as well as flower, tree, and water images, all from the one place. Amazing.
Susi Nuss' Basketry Graphics A wide range of images and explanations to do with basketry, including... links back here.
Florida State Museum : Quilts is a beautiful collection of quilt patterns all known to have been handmade in Florida.
The late Tom Bahti's map of the rug styles of the Navajo. Wonderful and with interesting links to many other Native American weaving sites.
Suzanne Alejandre's fascinating (and completely different from this) site on Patterns of all kinds, including the mathematics of tessellation and many references to Natural Patterns. Also interesting links. Site last updated 1997.
Bill's site is a wonderful resource for all background-seekers. It contains both a rich variety of Bill's own "GIF-Pile" and a large and well-chosen index to other sites. There are also indexes to other graphics resources such as borders.
Drs Nicholas Ercolani and Joceline Lega's Freshman Colloquium on Natural Patterns includes a section on Defects, which sounds unattractive but contains real and beautiful images of Natural Patterns that can be explained precisely as breaks or defects in a regular pattern, such as sand patterns that are not just repeated parallel lines but have extra lines here and there that don't quite fit. Fascinating. Also sea shells (with illustrations of what the formulae can generate), waves, fluids.
EyeWire is a disconcertingly commercial site. The images are based on natural images but are boldly watermarked with a copyright sign unless you're prepared to fork out $50 for a low-res image, $150 for medium or $210 for high. The labelling is a bit iffy; an image of Eryngo flowerheads is named 'Purple pods' which is odd as they are a bluish violet, and not seedpods at that. Subjects include sand ripples, grasses, pebbles and so on, mostly chosen so there is one dominant colour. There are also some CD's at $300 - Animal Patterns, Natural Patterns etc.
Heikki Luhtala's wide range of well-thought-out tilings and backgrounds in various sizes.
Jimpix is a set of zipped wallpaper images including a few natural ones rather violently reflected and rotated so that they tile.
Marcelo Walter's home page - he's a computer graphics researcher - contains some funny images as he worked on synthesising mammalian patterns in three dimensions! Judge for yourself.
Phyllis Smith's Backgrounds & Alphabets are a well-organized collection of backgrounds in simple but original forms, e.g. household tools on plain-coloured paper, grouped by theme and including some Natural Patterns.
Stephen Sharnoff's photos include several natural patterns, and other beautiful photographs especially of Lichens with a database compiled by Stephen's wife Sylvia. One of the lichen images is on a background of Navajo rugs, and shows the plant used to create the brown Navajo dyes.
Sierra offers a list of other graphics sites, as well as being a curious site on its own.
Wallpaper Depot is a useful and extensive list of other wallpaper sites. It lists my site as "A large collection of patterns sorted by category, dozens of categories of patterns including many natural images." Which seems accurate enough. Be warned that the site pops up horrible advertising on your screen.
Wallpaper Heaven! is Robert Brooks' interesting and effective web site. Although it is definitely "artificial" rather than "natural", the site deserves a look for its ingenious, even witty, approach to tiling.
Dr Zeus' beautiful rock backgrounds are based directly on real rocks.
Janet's Pictures: a small set of photos of amusing patterns, non-tiling. "It's fun to look for natural patterns when strolling around."
Rosemary Calvert's Natural Patterns A small page of elegant photos by Rosemary Calvert FRPS. Non-tiling. "Natural patterns are all around us."
E. I. Stevenson's photography gallery Non-tiling images of trees etc; not very patterny.
updated 25 July 2003