Long before there were “fidget spinners”, Pokemon and “Pogs” there was a craze that swept me away when it first hit the market. A Hungarian designer called Erno Rubic devised a cube, subdivided up into 3x3x3 cubies that all slid on each other in layers:
I instantly had to have one (well, in truth I had 9, including a triangular, circular and 4x4x4 one that I still have). Continue reading
When asked by a friend (hey Trevor!) “can I make Sunflowers”, my answer initially was “dunno”, but let’s find out:
I found a Youtube video by Ph2 with a flower base that was near identical to a number of other flower petal turnings I have done before. Squash then squash then squash and you get 16 petals per flower – nice. Using a simpler form the sepal works. Having the basis for the fold I set about selecting paper and scale to make these things near actual size.
I had some Lokta paper, in yellow and chocolate, so laminated a smaller chocolate square to the centre of a 26cm square, waited until dry then began the paper coaxing. Continue reading
Often I find highly technical folding is mentally cleansing – that complete absorption in meticulous detail lets you lose yourself:
Jason Ku is an engineer and origami artist unlike any other – having marveled at his bicycle, I was determined to find something else of his to try.
I had dismissed this fold, featured in a Tanteidan convention book I peruse periodically as too hard, but given my skill level has raised (attributable directly to my structured wrestling with Kamiya’s Ryu Jin), I thought I would give it a try.
To my astonishment, the folds came quite easily, breathtaking collapses and “unfold everything and re-fold it this way” moments seem just to work themselves out and the result is pleasing to me at least. Continue reading
I was paper shopping, as you do (my daughter calls me a paper nerd) and stumbled across a hand-made sheet of blue embossed Lotka that reminded me of dragonscale:
She who must be obeyed (SWMBO), an avid gamer and tamer of Dragons, had asked for a dragon so I put 2 and 2 together and got 17, well 5 to be precise. I have been exploring dragon-form, with the current Weyr (or wing) containing 5 dragons so far (Darkness Dragon by Tadashi Mori, Fiery Dragon by Kade Chan, Green Dragon by Piotr Pluta, Riu Zin 1.0 by Satoshi Kamiya and nearly a Western Dragon by Shuki Kato)
After examining the paper, and its fold receptivity, SWMBO decided on a Fiery Dragon so I start bending, patiently (the paper is more like fabric so although you can crease it, it tends to want to unfold again.
I have these lovely bits of Lotka and was looking for something to be my first fold with this new paper:
I chose Brian Chan’s Wolf spider partly because I had not folded it before and partly because the “milk chocolate” fibrous nature of the paper reminded me of the natural colour and texture of the spider itself.
The first cut is more painful than the first fold on a sheet that is roughly rectangular – the issues with most hand-made papers include rough edges, uneven thicknesses, odd fibre bundles in unfortunate places and a lovely mottled colour distribution.
