Apparently 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.
Exploring the notion of curve-following corrugations, I drew a section of a sine wave, placed a series of graduated squares diagonally along it, constructed diagonal bisectors and extended them to the bounding boxes. then tiled, mirrored and flipped copies to construct a sine-wave that extended over an A4 page:
Although tiny, I used a stylus to score the necessary creases then spent a couple of hours delicately collapsing it.
The first few creases did not cooperate but as more of the structure emerged, it reinforced the remaining collapses and it sort of started to look after itself. Explore further the Maths behind this technique in this published paper.
Continue readingI have had a partially completed test fold of Chen Xiao’s “Styracosaurus” on my desk for months – in truth I started it before we went on holidays (8ish weeks ago) and just sort of discarded it part way through the fold sequence.
Returning from holidays, having tied up the editing of the new origami book, I decided rather than discard the model I should finish it, and am glad I did. this model’s structure is amazing, the sensitive use of colour and complex collapses make this a challenging fold.
Continue readingAnyone with a decent knowledge of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, would recognise the name “Spiny Norman” – the gigantic hedgehog that haunted Dinsdale, the more vicious of the Piranha Brothers. When I saw Yudai Imai’s Hedgehog, I knew I had to give it a try:
I had been looking for a model to best show of some duo 30cm Thai Unryu I had bought from the Origami Shop.
Although Unryu is generally tissue thin, this duo paper seemed really thick, still I thought it was worth a bend so set about gridding – This was really hard work on fingers, and resorted to a bone folder – only when I laided in creases crisply was I able to reverse them (and in many cases even then with difficulty).
Continue readingMy second test fold from a book by Tetsuya Gotani, this time a “Nollentonk”:
I say “Nollentonk”, only because my sister, when young, used to call elephants nollentonks – not sure why.
This lovely folding sequence carefully hides white right until the emergence of the tusks via a clever colour change. The morphology of the model emerges as distinctly elephantine fairly early on and some of the moves that isolate features are delicious.
Continue readingThe remnants of a pack of Daiso washi was sitting in my cupboard and i am not sure, so I start folding Fumiaki Kawahata’s Triceratops (from Origami Tanteidan Magazine 57) and realised why it was unused:
You assume that paper is square, and start folding, only to discover in some dimensions it is really not square, but you persist none the less, kludging landmarks as you go.
Continue readingAs part of the Sydney Origami group’s weekly challenge, we were tasked with a modular:
This is Regenbogen, designed by Maria Vahrusheva, described in the following Youtube tutorial video
The units (you need 30 for a ball of this configuration) are quite easy to fold (I managed to teach them to my Pastoral Care group kids – their version of this fold is still a work in progress … yes, I have folded nearly 2 of these now) and luckily (for boys at least) consists of mostly folding in half – something most people can do.
Continue reading…and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except for a mouse:
Prep for festivities is always fun. Family feast tomorrow, lots to do. I hope you and your families enjoy the prep time as much as the day itself. Continue reading
I must admit to being a bit of a fanboy when it comes to the works of Satoshi Kamiya. His designs are genius, fabulously complicated to fold and make good use of the sheet:
This is his Octopus – an amazing fold from an octagon that yields lovely little legs, a beady set of eyes and a pendulous 3D head/body with a modicum of paper torture. Continue reading
In topology, a branch of mathematics, the trefoil knot is the simplest example of a nontrivial knot:
This is Kevin Hutson’s design, well CP really, that I sort of just nutted out after mis-folding it 4 times and uttering some bad words (sorry Mum). The observant amongst you will notice that it starts and finishes at the same point – like a mobiius strip on acid. Continue reading
In my list of “models to try someday” was this model designed by Takashi Hojyo:
A complex management of points, this lovely rendition of a Pegasus has much to love. The wings, legs and general morphology are very pleasing to the eye but not easy to achieve as a fold. Continue reading
It seems to be the season for buying houses. A couple of my work colleagues have, individually, in the last little while purchased houses:
The “Great Australian Dream” apparently is to own your own home – this seems irrefutable proof that it is still entirely possible. Continue reading
I cannot believe I have not tried this before:
A lovely hexagonal tessellation in one corner of a hexagon becomes the fluffy tummy, collapsing the body makes for lovely eyes and a pair of crenellated wings. Continue reading
Topologically convoluted geometric modulars confuse the brain – shapes that morph into different shapes in stable but seemingly unpredictable ways are fascinating:
This is a wedge-flex – a modular hinged construction of a series of triangular prisms (wedges) that fold, bend, twist and re-align in interesting configurations. Continue reading
