blah blah blah, about nothing in marticular – may contain traces of aaaarrrggghh
As you may have guessed from subsequent posts, I have been learning to fold Satoshi Kamiya’s Ryujin 3.5:
After a year of lessons, learning bits of the model and patiently/painstakingly working on each of the elements of the design, I managed to combine all onto one model. Continue reading
This post only serves to test a new plugin from wordpress – WP to TWITTER
It supposed to autotweet an announcement of a new post – seems to work a treat.
Soz for the spam, will purge
This post tests the new editor on my iPad
Seems to work well
This morning I was greeted with the sad news that actor Leonard Nimoy had passed away. Our universe is a little dimmer, missing a bright and shining star. “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it”:
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP
— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) February 23, 2015
Leonard Nimoy did for television and movie what few others have achieved: he demonstrated through his “Spock” character portrayal that a loyal, honest, ethical, objective, calm, logical, thoughtful, respected male alien could be an invaluable colleague and life-long friend. We can all learn from this – he challenges all males to do better.
I have been, and always will be a fan of that “green-blooded devil” and all that he stood for.
You too can fold a tribute – go here
They say “many hands make light work” and they (whoever “they” are) are quite correct:
My pastoral care group (the Mighty Magee F) and I folded Tomoko Fuse’s Icosahedron Kasudama, as part of a “getting to know you” exercise to start off the year, with the theme “the sum of the parts is greater than the individual”. Continue reading
As 2014 rolls to a close, we welcome the new year:
These are digits designed by Andrey Lukyanov, as demonstrated via videos by the talented Sara Adams – check them out.
Happy New Year!
There is always time to make a little peace in our world.
It takes incidents like those that unraveled yesterday to realise that peace is a choice we make as participants of the world on which we live. Continue reading
I am honored to have been allowed to learn how to fold Satoshi Kamiya’s Ryujin 3.5 by an extraordinarily talented folder who goes under the name “MrOrigami”.
When finished, it should look like this:
He sends me lessons, I must complete them neatly and photo-evidence back to him before he sends me the next lessons.
This blog post chronicles my progress so far. It is a long and winding road towards folding the whole thing from one square of paper – that road consists of a myriad of skills, techniques and components all designed to tuck away 70%+ of the sheet revealing just the dragonny bits.
The Crease Pattern is terrifying (but if you look closely you can see head, body in 2 sections, claws and tail … well, I can):
I hope I am skillful enough to learn how to fold it … we shall see. Explore PART 2 of this project. Continue reading
I have long admired Sara Adams at Happy Folding as an inspirational folder and teacher.
Recently, she had a compentition (well, 5 in fact to celebrate 50k subscribers to her video channel), I entered and won – yay!
I recently received, by mail, all the way from Germany, a paper pack with some lovely papers to try
Much energetic folding will result from this gift, including a chance to try elephant hide, washi-deluxe and many more. Thank you Sara, you have made another Happyfolder 😛
Walking, as I do, through our Year 10 campus I was struck at how many display cases they have, mostly empty.
I put forward the suggestion that I was happy to fill one with origami and the idea took hold.
The cabinets are big unstructured spaces, I appropriated a clump of plinths to create levels and stages for larger works and then plopped large cool bits of bent paper on them in a sort of fashion.
Stepping back I am struck by a couple of things – (1) how amazing some of the models are (testament to the brilliance of the designers); (2) how much time that tiny collection of models represents (testament to my patience, insanity or both); and (3) I made them.
I hope the kids realize that patience and skill is developmental – passion is an energy that can be harnessed to make great beauty and paper is not “just paper”
I am old enough to remember when a folk singer named Ross Ryan released a campy song about flying horses, and given that is an ear-worm of a song and it has just turned “Year of the Horse” for Chinese New Year, I thought it was an omen on what next to fold:
This is “Pegasus” by Dong Viet Thien from my newly arrived VOG2 origami book. A lovely use of a square, with some of the largest wings of this style of model I have seen.
Much of Origami is algorithmic (algorithm = procedural solution to a problem). A rabbit ear is an algorithm, one knows how to fold it on a corner – double rabbit ear is the same solution, folded two simultaneously. Petal fold is also a standard maneuver which got me thinking of the Sato Rose algorithm.
I like this algorithm particularly because of the free-form nature of much of the folding, and the way it seems to “fit” a pentagon. I decided to use the same folding algorithm but try it with other regular polygons – I tried triangle(3), square(4), pentagon(5), hexagon(6), heptagon(7), octagon(8), nonagon(9) but gave up on the decagon(10).
The algorithm involves “nearly” bisecting each vertex to form an echo shape at the centre of the sheet – you then halve that internal echo to create a slightly offset echo and use that as the basis of a “kawasaki twist” Continue reading
Exploring my new VOG2 book, there are many lovely things to try but this model uses a method I have not been brave enough to try until now – wet folding.
The idea is to take heavy paper, too thick to fold conventionally (it would crack, split and otherwise be finger-bruisingly impossible to sculpt) and apply WATER to it before coaxing it into shape.
I used watercolour cartridge (27cm square) – a thick board-like paper that snaps when bent dry. Using a damp rag, I applied water to front and back and immediately the sheet transformed into this malleable leather-like slab. Continue reading
Flushed with the success of MC on Ricepaper, I decided to try “Double Tissue” – a fine crisp strong medium that many origamists rave over.
I found some bargain animal-print tissue whilst looking on a whim in a “Crazy Clarks” wrapping section ($1.50 for 10 sheets 50x70cm), then went to the newsagent and purchased a packet of “Hallmark” brand tissue ($2 for 3 sheets 50x70cm) – both ends of the tissue paper spectrum I guessed. Continue reading
In our previous house I had a rose garden – I planted and maintained 42 rose bushes, lovingly collected cow poo, mulched, pruned and relentlessly sprayed them to combat the Queensland climate’s unsuitability for growing them. I also was a member of the Queensland Rose Society so occasionally displayed blooms at shows and in competitions, gaining an appreciation of the ‘technical appreciation’ of a bloom’s structure, symmetry and form. Needless to say I love roses.
I have long been fascinated and frustrated by the modified Kawasaki Rose II in equal parts, it’s mathematics is mind-buggering and all the techniques I had been exploring contained so much pre-creasing that the resultant bloom is mashed and dented beyond recognition. This variation, designed by Naomiki Sato is quite the loveliest thing of this ilk on the planet at the moment in my opinion. Continue reading
