flower

Bunch

| wonko

Faced with a brief hiatus before marking became crippling, I set about to re-master the free form folding technique of the Sato Rose:bunch

I have found many guides for Naomiki Sato’s rose that do precise pre-folding, invariably I get lost or end up with a bloom that is so geometrically perfect that it is not very realistic, so went searching for a technique that allowed for natural bloom variation.red

Two years ago (or thereabouts) I had mastered the knack of turning a free-form Sato rose, but then lost it – not sure why. I mangled dozens of sheets of paper trying to get it back to no success. “Free form” is a term I use to describe a process that has nearly NO landmarks – you fold it to about here, then back a little and so on. With such a complicated fold, mistakes early ruin the later fold as they compound out of control. Continue reading →

505: Dragonfly

| wonko

As part of my JOAS membership, I get sent magazines with models to try – a really excellent collection of complex models from the worlds best designers. When I saw Satoshi Kamiya’s Dragonfly, I was really scared of it.505DragonFlyThe level of pleat management and re-arrangement of flaps and layers is truly terrifying when viewed as a whole.

As a “treat”, to reward my marking progress (I am a teacher, I set assessment but hate marking it) I allowed myself to complete a couple of steps each sitting. This fold has taken place over the period of 3 weeks, a little at a time. the advantage of this method is that I did not get freaked out by what was to come, just concentrating on the couple of steps I was allowed to complete. Continue reading →

Vermillion Oncidium

| wonko

…so a friend was in Osaka Japan, and found some paper, rolled and posted it home to me – one of the sheets was this lovely hot orange flecked with gold leaf.

Orchids sprang to mind, so I cut the sheet (the first cut is the hardest) into 6 graduated squares with nearly no wastage and then folded Lang orchid blooms from them. Continue reading →

Folding Algorithms – Sato Rose

| wonko

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 →

464: Say it with Flowers

| wonko

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 →