Modules are the parts that are repeated in a pattern. They can be as simple as a single line or shape. Here a hexagon shape is the module that repeats.

Sometimes patterns are made just by a change in size (and color) as in these wall tiles.

Or each module can be made up of several smaller elements called motifs.

The modules in this pattern have several motifs -- dots, a vine shape, leaf shapes, round bud shapes, and border lines.

Modules can repeat one after the other.

Modules can rotate as they repeat. One module is rotated 90 degrees four times to make this diamond-shaped pattern.

The same four modules can make different patterns depending on how they are rotated.

Two different modules can alternate, as they do in two bands of triangles on this Mexican pot.

Bands of patterns can appear directly over each other.

Or bands of patterns can be staggered over each other.

Regular patterns are predictable.
In the pattern below, can you predict the tile that comes next in the top row? Choose from the tiles in the bottom row.

Did you choose the white one?

Lucy Mora and José Andres Villalba both use a similar rabbit module made up of a complex body with ears, eye, mouth, legs and tail. Lucy made mirror images adapted to fill the two semicircles of a small plate.

José incorporated his rabbit module on the belly of his pot with other band patterns on the pot’s shoulder. Just below the neck, he made a band of repeated indentations with the handle of a spoon. He divided the pot into four sections and used black and red slip to paint alternating band patterns at the top of each section. Because the two different band patterns on the shoulder of the pot are different widths, the spaces for the rabbit modules differ. The proportions within José’s rabbit are distorted (thicker or squeezed) depending on the space in which the rabbit module is painted.

There are many other ways to repeat simple elements or complex modules of the same or different sizes to construct a great variety of patterns.

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