When saying ooroo to someone, you can give them flowers or something like this that lasts much longer:
Experimenting with some new season winter collection Ikea paper, I decided to try multiple simple roses that combined into a snub stellated icosahedron – clusters of 5 blooms, quite lovely,
I hope your move to the next phase in your life is wonderful, Colleen – thanks for all the support.
Continue readingI have been sitting on this model for ages, trying to nut it out because although the module is relatively easy to fold, the proportions and construction of this modular ball is torturous to be polite:
I settled on a 6:11 rectangle for my module, and folded 33 of them (3 as a test), then began the task of working out how this works.
Each point is made of 3 modules, the final lock is REALLY hard for each vertex, then they twist and turn behind the 3 adjacent modules to have their spare ends pop up as one of 3 to make new points. I put together and disassembled a dozen times until I found the right order/morphology.
The result is not as tidy as I would like, and I may re-try it with a different proportion rectangle to screw further with the vertex shape, but I am pretty chuffed to have finally got it together – it was a real wrestle.
Continue readingApparently one of the symptoms of the plague was to smell a sweet smell like flowers:
That escalated rather quickly, but that is life in a pandemic age I guess. This “black flower ball” is “Mayhew”, a kusudama designed by Xander Perrott, a lovely thing indeed.
Continue readingIn an age of great confusion and concern over health, safety and social distancing, it is interesting (nay, alarming) to see the spike of “fake news” relating to the current Pandemic:
We learn via social media that Covid-19 was man-made, released as a viral payload from some weaponsied experiment (gone wrong, or not), is transmitted via 5G, and is defeated by injecting disinfectant and drinking bleach. We hear and watch idiot orange leader lie, contradict himself, blame storm, underfund, over-claim, then go and play golf while his country suffers.
We learn that some ffolk, tired of being “isolated” for a week or two in one of the most virus-ravaged countries chose to riot (hence magnify the problem) for their right to congregate, despite social distancing suggestions in place to save their lives – and we see them turn up, enraged, with guns, like they can shoot the fucking invisible enemy.
We hear from celebrities, entombed in their mansions, doing it tough because they are down to only domestic champagne, we hear of crop circles, conspiracies, complete shit uttered by people with access to the greater public, in the end (like this post) it is all NOISE, no SIGNAL.
It appears scientists and health workers DO know how to mitigate spread, that social distancing IS effective at arresting spread, that outbreaks are inevitable but manageble if there is a healthcare system in place applying rational and reasonable steps, and that the world will return to some version of normalcy slowly and cautiously.
This is “Zenith”, a 30 piece kusudama, designed by Xander Perrott (from his eBook “Folded Forms”), folded from duo red/natural Kraft. It is reminiscent of the shape we are seeing of virus (cells?), it was folded during a telly binge, it helped to calm me down when I think of work Monday: I am a teacher, for the past few weeks I have had had nearly normal classes (I teach mostly year 11 and 12, they were back in F2F after an extended period in ISO). This coming week, all students return to a tiny inner-city campus. 1700 boys, 120 staff, no room to swing a cat, social distancing impossible. Happy days.
The story of the moment is COVID-19, and the unprecedented effects the global pandemic is having on “business as normal” across the world.
In out little corner of the planet, things continue to be weird. As a teacher, I am still at work, with 1700 boys in a fairly confined space. The current government position is that it is “business as usual” for schools, as we gear up to deliver online learning as part of our “continuity of learning” plan. I want to say I feel good about things, but we all deal with uncertainty our own way.
Continue readingRiccardo Foschi frequently shares crease patterns for his new designs on social media. When I saw “Mushu” I knew I had to try and fold it:
It is rare to find a “happy” dragon, but this one beams a positive energy that makes you smile. There is lots of detail to take in – the head has branched horns, smiling eyes, lovely colour-changed curly whiskers, nostrils, teeth, a lovely wiggly tongue, lower jaw and a beard. A lovely set of back spikes, each leg has 3 toes and the beautiful fan tail caps off the beastie.
Made over a period of a week, from 5x 2:1 rectangles of odd spotty black Ikea Kraft. Sections form variously tail, legs, body and head modules, all of which ingeniously interlock without the need for glue. Riccardo also states that it can be made with a single 10:1 rectangle, but I thought that would be too wasteful when cut from a paper roll, so decided on the modular approach.
My problem with crease patterns is that, although they show the major creases, they do not really hint on the shaping or fold order. The head, in particular, took me a while to sort out. I decided, contrary to the designers photo, to fold the legs differently – I think they look more natural this way (but I folded forward, backward, forward and back many times before deciding on this configuration).
Continue readingFor the last 10 or so years, I have used Origami as a pastoral care group “getting to know you” exercise, encouraging the students in my care to get involved, learn something new, and share the skills.
The WHOLE is greater than the SUM OF THE PARTS.
I laminated red and black paper, then sliced it up into 2:3 ratio rectangles. I taught some kids, they taught others – together we made the 30 modules necessary to make this spikey ball (a stellated icosahedron).
The modular construction is an interesting exercise in 3 and 5, and because the paper is quite rigid, the resultant kusudma is lovely – it joins a nice collection of similar of collaboratively constructed modulars – a testament to the power of the idea, the value of being open to new things and the willingness to have a go.
Being a member of a professional association has many advantages. I maintain memberships with Japanese Origami Society (JOAS) and Origami USA (OUSA) because they offer members fabulous access to new designs:
This is the recycling logo, internationally recognizable (although if you are observant I have folded a Möbius strip version of it). Designed by Sharon Turvey, recently the diagrams for this lovely model became available via “theFOLD” – one of OUSA’s publications.
As a modular, this design is clever, it’s careful definition of symbol and colour change faithfully renders the logo with relatively few folds. 4 different modules (2 different corners and 2 different white connectors) make up the model.
Continue readingMy usual line “if you find interesting paper, get it and I will make you something out of it” has been the start of many fascinating journeys:
Peter and Majella travelled to Japan, and found some lovely paper – one, a sheet of hand-made natural Kozo with botanical inclusions screamed out for something delicate and textured. I had intended to return to Mikiller觅晨’s modular dragon, having already folded it large, I thought it might be interesting to fold it tiny and trap it in a shadowbox frame.
A colleague brought me back some Hanji paper from her visit to Korea, and I was wondering what to fold with it when I stumbled across a post on Facebook describing a modular money dragon fold.
Designed by Hieu Dang, modified & diagrammed by Lien Quoc Dat ( tutorial: youtube.com/c/LQDchannel ) to be folded from 10 x bank notes, and thought it was worth a go. When I wrestled with an american dollar, deciding it too small for me to fold, I scaled up and cut 10 x 1:2 rectangles from a burgundy sheet of Hanji, and began folding.
This reminds me a LOT of Satoshi Kamiya’s Ryu Jin 3.5, but not as many scales, still, it s a time-consuming fold, and many of the techniques are repetitive, but manageable. I found the diagrams on the head really difficult to fathom, and the low resolution images made it difficult to to work out what’s what. See for yourself.
Continue readingCruising around on facebook, as you do, I saw a call to test a new Kusadama by Ilja Trochanowski:
I put my hand up and set about folding the 6-piece cube, an interesting intricate design based on an octagonal collapse with some fiddly treatment of the flaps to make curly floral facets.
Continue readingLooking for a rose-based box for a gift, I came across Tadashi Mori’s tutorial for this fold:
Made of “curler” units, the rose-like structure on top of the box required 4 squares. The box lid also requires 4 squares, the base also – 12 squares all up.
Continue readingCruising around on Fakebook, as you do, I came across a module that seemed really familiar. I am sure I have seen it elsewhere, but am not able to find it (I think it is a Bascetta variant?):
I decided to give it a whirl – nice and simple, and quick to fold, it locks nicely with a positive paper tension keeping groups of 3 together, then you group the 3-unit points into clusters of 5 and you get a nice positive curvature. Using other combinations I can imagine zero curvature (6 modules) and negative curvature (7 modules) … hence a torus is possible?.
Continue readingRiffling through boxes of stuff from our kid’s Kindy years, we came across a cache of artworks my Son painted. Being too precious to throw out (and long since removed from the fridge), I set about cutting it up into 2:1 rectangles – LOTS of them:
I then arbitrarily folded them into a modified unit based on one I used that was designed by Tomoko Fuse.
When you have a little time, and 90 bits of paper on hand, you should have a go at this delightful brain-breaker designed by Daniel Kwan:
This is not my first attempt at this model, back in 2011 I folded it in white, and decided to re-work it in colour.
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