People process loss in different ways. 10 years ago a friend lost her fight with cancer and I am still saddened by the loss of such a bright and affirming soul:
While I could not bring myself to attend a memorial mass, none the less I still feel the loss. I chose to find solace in the many wonderful memories of a friend and confidante. Continue reading
…how’d he know that then?
Being a fan of Monty Python, I find quotes emerge everywhere. What better to celebrate 300 models than a lovely little penguin:
Designed by Jun Maekawa, I am amazed I have never folded this little cutie before, such a nice shape and, with presentation paper it would be a great display piece. Continue reading
It is well known that dogs and middle school – squirrel! – children are easily distracted – Squirrel!:
I am reminded of Doug the dog from the movie “UP” every time I see my students trying to focus but being unable to notice everything else around them but what they are asked to notice. Continue reading
I am blessed to have friends who occasionally gather around an original board game from the 60’s and pit plane against plane in a WW2ish game of “Dogfight”:
Tonight it was the valiant PDub against the Von Richtoffen Brothers, with much valiance on both sides, some gutsy moves and a bunch of squabbling like 4 year-olds.
Cards, dice, strategy, attack but in the end, the Von Richtoffen brothers were victorious, only after sustaining tragic losses of a triple-ace in training and a double-ace in training by a plucky little airman who went down in a blaze of glory. Continue reading
Perusing my copy of Drawing Origami – Tome 2, I noticed a lovely little tiger designed by Oriol Esteve:
This teensy weensy tiger is very cute, has resplendent stripes and terrific proportions from paws to tail. Continue reading
I gotta learn to be more careful, the previous post (which I removed the number from) turned out to be a refold from my first 365 (years ago) that I had forgotten about (I got the fold sequence from somewhere else and did not twig to the duplication … so sue me 😛 ) Fortunately a follower pointed this out:
This is Jun Maewawa’s “Peacock 1” – a lovely exercise in Miura Ori corrugation folding for the tail and some interesting layer management to form legs and head among it. Continue reading
EDIT: as a kind reader pointed out, I have already folded this model, so it cannot count as one of the current 365. It is a relief on 2 fronts (1) Someone is reading and (2) This fold of this model is vastly superior to the original
Some call me a dinosaur, they may be justified but if I am even half as cool as this Triceratops, then it is all good:
Designed by Jun Maekawa, this delightful little dinosaur is one of my +favs so far in that it has all the triceratopsy features (3 horns, flat plate head, stocky body, lovely proportions) and still remains simple enough to achieve easily with a 40cm square (prolly smaller with more nimble fingers)
Continue reading
Insects seem to be a fascination among origami designers – at the height of “bug wars” when designers were competing for the most intricate designs that were complex, had lots of legs, were thin and realistic renderings and really pushed the boundaries of existing techniques:
This astonishing model starts as a frog base. Through a torturous set of point isolation and narrowing, we get the impossibly thin legs and a lovely set of antennae. Halve this, now fold that in half, then do a double rabbit ear, now halve that … thank goodness for thiiiiin paper and accurate folding. 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 was doodling with a 17cm square, divided into an 8×8 grid and collapsed, via a photodiagram (and a bit of wrestle-magic) into a curious but possibly useful surface corrugation/tessellation:
With an exercise in patience, fold accuracy and layer management, a “swastika”-like collapse becomes a sunken 4 segment recess, then the edges tidy up with some propagatible pleats, making this tesselatable. Continue reading
Doodling with a traditional birdbase, I noticed a way to open it up so there were 4 equal sized partitions that I could get to go flat:
Researching a little, it seems Jun Maekawa pioneered this, and also suggested a lovely corner locking mechanism that made the whole structure quite stable.
I can see this as actually useful – it is really efficient as a use of paper so you could feasibly make one that is the right size for nuts, lollies etc for parties.
Now I am pretty sure that “ninja stars” were not really a thing, but – meh:
This rather charming woven six-pointed star is an interesting exercise in re-working a square into a windmill-like hexagonal base. Continue reading
Origami has featured in cinema in many ways. The Blade Runner franchise uses origami figures to accentuate certain story points and the most recent movie features an elderly “Gaff”, in a retirement home, folding a sheep:
After some research it seems the model was a tweaked Jun Maekawa model. tweaked because the original has curled horns that would make a quick-shot less clear on screen. Continue reading
I am always on the look out for well designed Kangaroos:
Interestingly, the best ones are often designed by people who do not have them around. This delightful 2-part model is designed by Kunihiko Kasahara, from the book “Origami Made Easy”. Continue reading
A 365 Challenge is a mixture of blessing and curse:
The relentless schedule amidst a full time job and part time life is challenging at times. I started this model last weekend but ran out of weekend before it was finished. Continue reading
