wtf

1188: Jeremy Shafer’s “Pyramid Tessellation”

| wonko

Few modern origamists are as prolific and inventive as Jeremy Shafer – he seems to be creating new models constantly, and most importantly, his designs are fun to fold:

This is his Pyramid Tessellation field – each molecule has pre-creases that have easy landmarks, meaning you could expand this field in any direction as far as you have patience for.

This version is a 4×4 field of 16 separate square-based pyramids – a lovely thing in itself but when you start playing with it it starts to do wonderfully weird things.

Using just the existing creases, the model flexes diagonally and also horizontally/vertically. When you flex it diagonally it turns in on itself and COLLAPSES down to a hexagonal stack – this initially broke my brain until I noticed the pre-creasing actually formed pyramidal faces that are equilateral triangles – the collapse then is just one state it can be arranged into.

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1187: Russian Lilac

| wonko

30 unit modulars exist in many forms, permutations and complications, few rival “Russian Lilac” for sheer time-consuming brutality:

Designed by Andrey Ermakov, this astonishing spikey ball has been quite a journey. I first added it to my “to fold” pile for a few years now, and then narrowly missed folding it as part of the IOIO (Internet Origami Olympiad) in 2021 – it was the nightmare round 2 task (I was knocked out in round 1).

The FIRST hurdle for folding this is the need to create 30 perfect regular hexagons that are all the same size (I created a few extra just in case shit went sideways). To do this, I cleaved a 2.1:1 rectangle from a 70cm wide roll of white/natural Kraft paper. Using 47 construction lines to form a regular TRIANGLE GRID on this page, I was then able to isolate 35 adjacent hexagons, which I then cut out carefully (scissors warning!!!).

Each hexagon then receives a 16 grid in all 3 axes, then 4 extra pre-creases before you begin unit folding. This totaled 1470 pre-creasing. Having bailed near the end of this year’s “Advent of Tessellations”, determined to return to it after some distance, I am not sure why i then bounced to another triangle grid on hexagon marathon project – I am guessing the time with my counsellor will eventually surface the reasons for the self-inflicted PTSD 😛

To form each unit, each hexagon then goes through 79 processes – all up each unit took me just over an hour each.

The main premise behind “2d colour-change origami” models (of which the flattened unit is one) is that you strategically utilise the edges of the sheet so you can reveal both sides of the paper along it by some clever flanges and flipping. The GENIUS of this model is that we use colour change to (when assembled) establish a colour-change triangle checkerboard across ALL outer faces of the finished polygon. Sadly each little triangle is not SEAMLESS – most are but not all, but based on my experience folding Daniel Brown’s seamless chessboards, I know this provision makes the design infinitely harder.

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1172: Storylines

| wonko

When asked to be part of the Papermakers and Artists QLD “On A Roll” Gallery exhibit, my first thoughts of a “scroll-like” object I could make was always going to be something relating to my current passion – Mulberry paper – Kozo.

I had, in previous posts, explored the harvesting and cleaning, beating and use of White Mulberry and Paper Mulberry pulp from twig to finished sheet. A consequence of processing a sheath of White mulberry was a collection of lovely white sticks without their bark. Experimenting what I could do with them, I discovered they accepted soft graphite pencil really well.

A scroll, to me, tells a story. Story telling is something that humans have always done, ever since they evolved the ability to communicate. Lots of cultures evolved oral traditions (spoken word), more developed repeatable symbology that evolved into alphabets and written communications. I was determined to explore ancient and modern story telling, with the idea that “Once upon a time” was a concept that has begun every story, in one form or another.

I began collecting different representations of the concept of “once upon a time”, and included Arabic, Burmese, Cantonese, English, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Maori, Mongolian, Nepali, Persian, Punjab, Sanskrit, Tamil, Thai, Tibetan, Urdu, Yiddish scripts that expressed this concept. Using a soft pencil, I transcribed (as faithfully as I could) these scripts, one per stick onto the twig bundle – interesting some used left to right, others right to left.

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1171: Doomscrolling

| wonko

If you have been paying attention, you would know i am a member of PAQ – Papermakers and Artists of Queensland. in 2025 we are mounting an exhibition that explores contemporary interpretations of the scroll, entitled “On a Roll”. I decided that I wanted to mount a FOLDED scroll as one of my submissions, and envisaged a massive tessellation:

I needed a theme, and a style. For a theme, I decided to try and “tell” the progression of the first year of the recent Covid-19 pandemic … because I could see a sequence of “blossoming” outbreaks that progressively “break” regular society.

The style choice was more complex – I love the aesthetic of Lacquerware – the Chinese/Japanese technique of covering simple materials in coatings of red lacquer, texture and patterns. I also wanted to have hints of “Kintsugi” – the Japanese technique of fixing broken pottery using lacquer and gold.

I chose red/natural Kraft paper because the red reminded me of the lacquer aesthetic, and the natural grounds the work in a common/everyday material. I selectively also introduced gilded elements into the finished folded work – symbolising the “patching” of the broken world – I went for a really minimal touch here, arguing less is more. Read further….

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Just a Guy Holding a Crane

| wonko

I was cleaning some cooked Paper Mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) bark, scraping the outer layers that was outer bark and the remnants of the dried up fleshy parts of the plant, and a thought occurred to me. The residue was really fibrous – what would paper even look like made from this waste?

Given I had the time, equipment and curiosity to fuck around and find out, I hand-beat the residue, rinsed the pulpy mess until it was clean, and then divided the ball into 3, figuring (via guestimation) that 1/3 of the blob was enough to make an A3 sheet.

I took 1/3, added it to a bucket of water and agitated it vigorously to breakup and disperse the fiber uniformly through the water. Then, using a rectangular chinese food container, I gently ladled the really watery pulp onto my new A3 Mold and Deckle, in the lid of my new vat. Taking the time to distribute the fibre evenly and thinly. When all the fiber was gone, I couched the resultant sheet onto glass, then added some smooth poly-cotton sheeting material as a layer to isolate the sheet, then added a flanellette layer, another poly-cotton sheet material layer and then repeated the sheet formation process another 2 times.

Topped off the “post” with another layer of flannelette, and a top sheet of glass. Putting this sandwich on an angle to encourage the drips onto the floor drain, I then added a besser block to add firm squishing pressure, and left it to drip overnight. I must engineer a paper press that is more consistent.

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1158: Wilhelmina the Wyvern

| wonko

Flipping through Makoto Yamaguchi’s “Origami Dragons Premium”, as one does, I stumbled across a lovely Wyvern, designed by Chuya Miyamoto:

Digging through my paper stash I found the perfect sheet for this model, a purple spotty Do paper that was part of a prize I won from Phạm Hoàng Tuấn’s Vietnamese origami paper shop pre-pandemic, so decided to give it a whirl.

My philosophy when approaching a super-complex origami design is based around “fuck around and find out” or more politely “fold until I finish or it fails”, and this model was a real treat.

A truly great design and fold sequence takes into account the material, not overly stressing it, managing accumulating layers and locking things together to keep things tidy. This design was so satisfying to fold, and in combination with the paper choice the resultant model is stunning.

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Short-Beaked Echidna

| wonko

There are only a few origami figures I MUST have in my collection – Steven Casey’s “Echidna” is one of these:

This adorable little monotreme is covered in one of my favourite square-grid tessellations, but skillfully crafted to allow all the other body bits to be where they need to.

I bought the British Origami Society booklet describing how to fold this treasure as soon as I knew it existed, and have folded it a few times now. Some sequences are nightmare fuel – this one is just so enjoyable to fold.

I recently received a shipment of paper from Origami-shop.com and in it was a 65cm 11 colour pack of the NEW Shadow Thai paper. I last bought it in 40cm square form but it was THICK so to my delight this version is thinner and takes complex folds really nicely. I chose this fur-like colour because it most closely matched the quill and hair colour of an echidna.

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1142: Daniel Brown’s Seamless Chessboards

| wonko

Having folded Steven Casey’s 8×8 40 grid seamless chessboard and singularly failing to fold Marc Kirschembaum’s 40 grid because of crease-creep inaccuracies, I was approached by Daniel Brown and asked if I was interested in his chessboards – naturally I jumped at the chance. “Seamless” chessboards are deliciously more complicated because it required each square to be represented by an un-broken surface (as opposed to being able to be comprised of bits and pieces of layers – a much easier path):

A "clusterfuck" of seamless chessboards
A “clusterfuck” of seamless chessboards

I say CHESSBOARDS because Daniel has developed a series of coloured/white alternate seamless models of LOTS of sizes, and the skills necessary to migrate edge paper towards the centre to effect colour changes is a thing that needs some work and, often, particular “widgets” (or self-contained localised fold structures).

I started with the 4×4, rather efficiently designed on a 9×9 grid ( 0.444 efficiency). I had a piece of blue-white kami, so gave it a whirl. Even dimensions require different approaches for adjacent corners as they are different colours – the same colour corner exists on the diagonal.

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8OSME – Melbourne, July 2024

| wonko

An unmissable opportunity presented itself where both OSME and Folding Australia conferences were to be hosted in Melbourne, Australia, one following the other. Having never attended an Origami conference (of any flavour) before, I jumped at the chance, but had little idea, really, what was ahead.

Diverse plenary lectures to start the days off

My wife and I got an Air BnB on Collins street for the week. Using the PT> train network, I travelled to and from Swinburne Uni for the international gatherings each day while Jo explored Melbourne Galleries and cafes.

I believed OSME stood for Origami, Science, Mathematics and Engineering – turns out the “E” was for Education, even though in this conference there were 2 Engineering strands … so, ok then. It seems the 8th iteration of this conference reflects origami/folding now so popular as an engineering concept.

A Myriad of parallel papers
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1139: Quantum Superposition

| wonko

Schrödinger’s Cat, as a thought experiment, states that if you seal a cat in a box with something that can eventually kill it, you won’t know if the cat is alive or dead until you open the box. So, until you open the box and observe the cat, the cat is simultaneously dead and alive.

We often use Schrödinger’s thought experiment to explain the concept of superposition. The experiment states that a hypothetical cat is locked in a box with some radioactive substance controlling a vial of poison. When the substance decays, it triggers a Geiger counter that causes the poison to be released, thereby killing the cat.

Since the box is locked, and we on the outside don’t know whether or not the radioactive substance has decayed and released the poison, we can’t tell if the cat is dead or alive. So, until we open the box to know for sure, the cat is both dead and alive. Mathematically speaking, there’s a 50 percent chance the cat is dead and a 50 percent chance the cat is alive. Source.

This is Sebastien Limet’s Shrodinger Square, a delicious exercise in folding a figure then hiding it inside another structure. I folded this in baking paper, and it is a little too transparent I think (I tried it in printer paper and it was too thick and opaque).

I like that the cat is made of the body and tail at opposite ends of the 5:1 sheet, closing and locking it brings the two pieces together in silhouette. Clever.

1137: Crane in a Box

| wonko

Cruising the channels on Origami Dan, I found a CP for a fold challenge I had missed, but decided to give it a whirl anyways:

Designed by Scott Okamura, this seemingly impossible fold featured a traditional Tsuru (crane) folded in the middle of a large page of duo paper – the surrounding paper is then formed into a box.

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1136: Tsuru-Jin

| wonko

As lightning crackled from the raging thunderstorm above, the electrodes sizzled, the smell of burning flesh hung damply in the air as the creature stirred on the table, accompanied by a mad cackling laugh interspersed with hysterical cries of “It’s Alive!!!”:

Apologies to Frankenstein lovers, but let us face it, this model is a bit of a Frankenstein. It is the result of putting a Satoshi Kamiya RyuJin 2.1 dragon head on a classic Tsuru (Crane)’s body. Nuts – right?

I first saw the CP (Crease pattern) for this on one of the Origami Discord servers I frequent (RyuCentral), and thought … how odd, how hard could that be??? Stupid man!

Dividing the paper into quarters and half along one diagonal, I reserved 1/4 on the diagonal for the crane and then set about laying in the graft CP for the dragon head in the remaining 3/4. It needed a 23 division grid that intersected at the square opposite the crane. Accuracy was the key. Grid laid in, I then started setting the pre-creases necessary for the head – stupid man, fucked the first set up twice (because I did not count), finally, pre-creasing done the collapse began.

I have folded many Ryu Jins, many versions, many times, so it was like returning to an old friend, interestingly muscle memory helped me not find the horrendously complex manipulations difficult at all (or maybe my subconscious was blocking the trauma) but to my surprise the accuracy I obsessed over early on paid off later allowing a pretty tidy collapse and NO damage to the reserved 1/4.

With the head collapses through early base, late base and shaping, I isolated and shaped the little arms and then set about working out how to fold a crane with the head as the head. Annoyingly I chose the wrong orientation first (der) and the head was upside down and backward. Just when I thought I would have to perform an infamous “neck twist” (interestingly NECESSARY on full RyuJins), I tried unfolding the crane and reversing all the creases (ie. folding it inside out) – to my delight that solved the problem (and THEN I remembered CPs are usually drawn WHITE SIDE UP – what a dickhead!!!).

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Square Field Crumple

| wonko

I bought some new shirts yesterday – interleaved inside was some lovely white tissue. I folded it into 3rds, then half to get a square, then half, then half and kept going until I had a small, multi-layered square about 8cm on the side.

Next I crumpled that so the centre of the square was a point. It was tough as there were so many layers. I then opened the last halving, reinforced the valley between, inverted one of the points (as one was up, the other down), and re-crumpled the points.

Repeating this technique, opening a layer, reinforcing the valleys in-between each point, inverting half so they all pointed the same way and re-crumpling, allowing the crumples to become more random as they thinned out.

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1102: The Offering

| wonko

Tucked away in an inconspicuous corner of the deserted clearing, nestled almost invisibly among the leaf litter, the first signs of civilization were found in the form of a rough-hewn but definitely hominid-worked paper offering. For whom, to what, why … we shall never know:

Followers of the blog will notice occasional references to paper making pursuits. This post looks at the most recent results of a paper making workshop I attended in early July 2023. I had previously (back in 2019) been a member of PAQ (Paper makers and Artists, Queensland) but found full time work made attending events difficult. Now I am retired I have more freedom, so reapplied for membership.

The group’s interests in paper are diverse – from botanical paper making, monoprinting, encaustics, stitching, collage, pulp sculpture and more – my interests are (fairly narrowly?) folding, but it is important to have ones interests informed by a wider palette so I am very much the learner in that group.

Previous workshops I made sheets with finely beaten banana stem and cotton display board, day lily and lemongrass pulp, and still have some of the paper from that session. This session we pulped banana stem (coarsely this time) and mixed it with lemon grass, Philodendron, and South African Pigeon Grass stem, in various combinations. The pulp was added to water, then a suspension-aid made from water soaked chopped okra, which generates a mucilage that makes the vat water more goopy, helping the pulp to stay in suspension longer before settling out. The results were much coarser paper, but it presented an interesting challenge to see what I could fold from it.

I first pressed then dried my sheets, brought home still dripping. I carefully separated them from their couching sheets (old torn up bed linen) and selected sheets to process further. Using a fairly stiff batch of Methyl Cellulose, I stuck sheets to my glass and let them dry, reasoning (correctly it turns out) that the MC would make the sheets more pliable and bind the fibres more closely together (given some of them were very loosely bound, this seemed like a good plan).

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1098: Dumb and Dumber

| wonko

I love a clever conceptual fold, and “Emptyhead” designed by Boice Wong (origamibyboice) is a clever example of art designed to make you think:

The first of these models – “Emptyhead I” is a lovely character that has an empty box sitting on his shoulders for a head. This model, uses a variation of the original CP (crease pattern), and represents his dumber brother completely detaching his head from his shoulders.

The original, as folded by Boice, has a solid cube for a head, but I Macgyvered a scheme to make it an open 2x2x2 cube instead, so he is clearly related to his more sensible brother.

From a 32 grid, this model cleverly presents shoes, cuffed pants, dress shirt, tie, collar, overcoat with lapels, 1 regular arm and one extra long arm, part of which becomes the box head. Such a neat design, the paper cleans itself up and provides wraps to make the seams tidy on the arms also. All this with no cuts, folds only. I did resort to using a few white glue spots to keep seams and layers in place, but tried to keep it as au-naturel as it was possible while being able to pose him for archival purposes.

I must admit to obsessing about this version, having solved the CP for the first version fairly quickly (which really surprised me if I am honest). I just assumed this version would let me make the free box head, but as I discovered, turning the long pleated tube into an open-ended box, when there was so little paper was a major issue.

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