…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
I came across a bunch of variations to a 12 unit modular cube that variously used a 1×1, 2×1 and 3×1 rectangle. I settled on the square variant (in retrospect I should have used the 2×1 version – half as much paper required, but you live and learn.
Initially I just was interested in the locking mechanism of a cube, so folded a red one. then I decided to see how a yellow one might intersect, then because I had some purple paper left over from the torus I thought to link the yellow to a purple, and the idea sort of grew from there.
I scoured my dealer’s (Rhonda, the custodian of paper supplies) shelves and ended up finding 11 different colours/tints – I added a “black” origami paper as the 12th colour and, hey presto they formed a ring of particular beauty.
It just sort of happened – I resolved to only fold during breaks at work, in front of kids, and over a period of 2 weeks it grew into a long chain and I was finally ready to join it into a ring.
I want to say this join was an easy, simple thing. I did not find it so – I tried, undid it, tried again, unfolded it (muttering obscenities under my breath). tried again, thought I had it until I realised it was wrong (the pattern should repeat, the join should not be visible – doh! Continue reading
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”
Needing to clean my brain, I looked for some box-pleating (as that is absorbing, fiddly and it is difficult to to do or think anything else while doing it):
I came across a design for a folding chair, folded in 24ths and decided to give it a go.
Osteichthyes or BONY fish appear from fossil evidence as far back as 420 million years ago when they appear to have differentiated from cartilaginous fishy things. Fossil records are sketchy but shapes and morphologies are visible in traces in very ancient rocks.
This odd origami attempts to hint at the faint fossil traces left in a rock of a conventional bony fish and it does a pretty good job for such a simple fold. Continue reading
My heuristic is that we do not get mail on Fridays – not sure it is always true but mostly. Last Friday I therefore did not check the mailbox. Sunday I discovered my Tanteidan had been delivered on Friday and I had left it for nearly 2 days before opening it.
On the cover, Gen Hagiwara’s violin – a sublime fold that I have seen many fellow paper-benders succeed at folding and I was determined to give it a bash.
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.
Early morning catching up on Facebook, I saw a friend had posted a link to a Youtube clip of a woven ring:
I took 8 11cm squares (left-overs from the torus project) and split them into quarter strips (making a total of 32 strips of paper), then folded each strip in half longways then in half shortways – nice easy folding. Continue reading
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
Now I know you are thinking this is not green, but the design is named “Green Dragon” by Piotr Pluta:
After I made the double-sided double tissue I had been looking for a fold that would suit such a busy paper – it sort of looks like dragon skin/scales so the idea took. Continue reading
I have recently spent time in a cabin in the woods – well, in truth, it is a cabin among some semi-tropical rain forest in the border ranges in northers New South Wales – a retreat for body and mind:
Having made some “double tissue“, I was itching to see how it took folds and I remembered a green thing I had folded way back as part of the 365 project – Robert Lang’s Green Tree Frog. My first attempt was small, white and not very detailed so I thought it might be fun to torture some double tissue with that design.
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
Itching to fold something, I dug out a lovely sheet of green VOG
Cut it into a square (because, even though it is sold as a square, rarely have I found it so. 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
