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blah blah blah, about nothing in marticular – may contain traces of aaaarrrggghh

174: A Quill

| wonko

Now in bygone eras (and magical schools) people used to sharpen a goose feather, dip it in ink and write with it – they called this contraption a Quill:

I was browsing for feathers, no iea why, when I stumbled accross a Vietnamese origami forum that had a rather lovely feathery pen thing, so decided to inflict the design on a nice piece of pearlescent white paper I had

fairly simple fold, with some fiddling around to get the nib shapely, in the end quite a nice fold.

Why a quill? Well, we are hours away from some announcement or other from J. K. Rowling about the Harry Potterverse, so I thought it appropriate.

“You’ve Got Mail!”

| wonko

…so I have been waiting on mail from OrigamiShop.Com – my birthday purchase and was delighted when my son told I had a parcel on returning home from work today:

I was a little concerned because the packaging was damaged in transit (Large format paper must be a nightmare to ship) but the book was bubblewrapped and the paper will be fine, if a little crinkled to begin with. Besides a lovely book (which has the “Ancient Dragon” as a sort of middle-range hardness model – hahahaha)

I bought a starter pack of “tissue foil” – this laminated paper has tissue+foil+tissue sandwiched together – I have never used it before but it is apparently good for compact, intricate models – we shall see.

So much marking … will I be able to resist starting from Satoshi’s collection?

163: The Bullfight

| wonko

Miguel the Matador struts confidently into the arena, the crowd erupts, enraptured. El Toro stampedes into the arena, head held high, the crowd roars entusiastically:

Proudly El Toro circles the matador, alert yet regal the matador watches his worthy opponet, a balletic interplay continues, each proud adversary taunting the other until…

they both live happy ever after, El Toro got put out to pasture and the Matador, a champion for animal rights forms PETA and abolished the barbaric … yeah, I know, I got nothing.

Interesting figurative model – each suggestive of form without being nit-pickingly detailed – I like them, except for the sport they personify. I was looking for “Llopio’s moment of truth” by Neal Elias but could not find a licensed diagram, so I bought the book that it is in – it is being shipped from the British Origami Society as we speak, so settled on a much simpler but none the less effective model by Robert Neale.

I had to cheat – you can just see the splayed paper clip and blob of bluetac holding up the matador (his ankles are too weak and the balance is all wrong for him to stand unaided, sadly.

Why a bullfight? Well, we have been invited to a Spanish-inspired lunch by some old friends “The Goodies” so I thought getting in the mood was a good plan.

Little Plane (that could) – Revisited

| wonko

Now on a Tuesday evening a mate and I get together to watch telly shows (BSG, now TOS Star Trek) and occasionally play a 60’s board game called “Dogfight”

My little plane, piloted by a newly allied Spanish ACE pilot Juan Morego was the last to take to the skies, became an ace quickly in a blinding side-attack on Jerry, and faced up for the final showdown with Von Hammer. He bravely (some would have said foolishly) chose a full on frontal assault:

Juan fired off a burst of 5 rounds, and was countered with 5 return rounds, Von Hammer appeared confident. Juan fired off  4 rounds in the second wave of attack just as Von Hammer’s guns jammed, his controls became unresponsive and all the fly-boy tricks (loop, barrel roll) could not get him out of the line of fire. Valiantly, Juan Morego downed Von Hammer, our arch nemesis for the very first time. Short of fuel he had to return to base so could not check the wreckage, but assumes Von Hammer lived to fight another day.

Needless to say there was great celebration on Juan’s return – a traditional feast (roast beef and yorkshire pudding all round, followed by copious pints and whiskey chasers, cocktails with silly umbrellas and waay too much fruit, flaming shots and then the final blow – a late night kekab). There will be sore heads and one or two queezy tummies amongst to the ranks on the morrow but good luck to them – fine bunch of chaps.

155: See Hear and Speak No Evil

| wonko

About a month ago I bought a huge sheet of tracing paper. Well, I call it paper but it is actually a type of opaque plastic called “vellum”. For my birthday fold I decided to see what vellum could do:

The paper was 42cm square (cut from a 42x60cm rectangle) and straight away I knew it would be tough – vellum does not like to be folded but once it is, hates being unfolded.

This INSANE design sculpts 3 wise monkeys Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru and places them under a palm tree via some miraculous paper torture. See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil is a pretty good life philosophy but there were evil words muttered whilst this fold was wrestled into place.

Getting the monkeys to look monkey-like with the density the body ends up being is a real challenge. facial expressions, such that they are, and arm postures alike were tough fought, but I am pretty happy with the end result.

I have learnt a lot from this exercise – vellum can be folded, but fatigue shows itself as splits, particulalry at the pointy ends. It hates being re-folded in the opposite direction on a fold (reversed), is VERY strong, once folded it stays there – consequentially, this model is rigid and is not trying to unfurl (much as I imagine tissue-foil behaves).

Will I use it again? not sure – when my tissue-foil arrives along with my Satoshi book I now have a point of comparison, I am honestly surprised the model worked at all, but will accept congratulatory applause now.

You too can have a go here – be warned, this is NOT an introductory exercise.

Happy Birthday to me 🙂

May, Done and Dusted

| wonko

So ends another month – May was a big one with a few seriously cool models in it (well, I think they are cool anyway), and I think I will add some of them to the Library Display just to freshen it up a little

In May I challenged the paper beyond what it was ever capable of doing – Schneider the spider was testament to paper fatigue, invented a bunch of designs (you see my skill level is going up so I see folded solutions to problems) and am happy with my progress to date.

What scares me a little, if I let myself think about it, is that I am not even half-way yet. Tying the fold into something that is happening to me and my family and friends seems to make the mad panic of “what am I going to fold today” a little less panicky … onward and upwards tho, hey.

Hope you are enjoying the ride, say “hi” to your mum for me.

150: Trophy for Matthew

| wonko

My son has recently graduated from his Honors program and as part of his Thesis, he had to compose a poster summarising his paper and findings:

So good was this poster that tonight he was awarded “The Alan Bailey Prize” for top student project – yay Matty.  I thought it warranted a shiny thing, so invented one

Using Brill-like techniques, I formed a cylinder then pleated and twisted a stem, quite happy with the result, hope Matty likes it – so proud.

Book Ordered

| wonko

So I have a birthday looming, have always admired Satoshi’s work, plan on attempting the ancient dragon later in the year and wanted to try some tissue foil (chose white) so thought why not.

The Origami-shop.com is well regarded in the origami community so I have signed up and it is all good. They have a huge range of things I would love to own.

I had long admired a volume entitled “Works of Satoshi Kamiya” and found it at 56.83 euro – excellent value – very happy, just awaiting international post and it will be mine.

Library Display

| wonko

So I have this big plastic box of models – 4 months worth of them, and I enquired if the School Library (I am a teacher btw) would like to use them for a display sometime:

The day after I suggested it, the display case was empty and we began laying them out

It is terrifying, and wonderful, to see so much paper torture in such a concentrated dose – some lovely models amongst that 4 months worth.

They can look after them until the end of the term I guess – we shall see how they fare being on display (they do look pretty under lights) – at least I can lock the cabinet to stop inquisitive fingers touching them. I hope the dust from the adjacent building site is over and done with – we shall see.

138: Flu Jab

| wonko

This afternoon I went to get my annual Flu Jab:

I am told it is “just a little prick with a needle” but I am sure the bloke who injected me does not like to be referred to that way 😛

I thought I should go original design also, not thinking I needed a pattern, so did a little free-form shaping, some simple pleating and crimping. I am fairly happy with it – it looks syringe-y and a little 3d too which is nice – not very tidy on the reverse side and the needle looks not very sharp.

132: Pyramid

| wonko

In the late 70’s (1979 to be exact), my musical world changed forever. I bought a record (remember them kids – black plastic circular things you put on a turntable) by a then teenage Gary Numan – it was “The Pleasure Principle”:

The music was electronic and I knew I had found my passion, the cover was baffling – a dapper teen in a suit, glancing casually at a glowing pyramid:

A simple re-working of the Waterbomb, some nice symmetry, it is delightfully complete on all sides

Made to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of that album, and the fact that I am going to see him and his band in concert tonight (WOOO!) supported by Severed Heads. Very excited by both, just quietly, as I had long given up home of ever seeing either live and resigned myself to collecting all their recorded works.

129: Making a Spectacle

| wonko

Now I had this idea that with box pleating it should be possible to make life-size spectacles:

So I set about experimenting, discovered that I could form 6×6 lenses, a nose bridge and some reasonable length arms with a 4×1 rectangle cut from an A3 sheet:

Quite cool – an original invention, chuffed with the result. hope you like them also – the ultimate in UV protection (and all light for that matter)

Don’t pretend like you do not want to look this cool 😛

And for those faithful following this nonsense, here is my crease pattern/plan so you can have a go yourself:

128: Mother’s Day Brooch

| wonko

Mother’s Day is a chance to do something nice for Mum, because…. When your Mum is going to be overseas, it takes planning for that to happen:

This first fold was completed a couple of weeks ago – snail mail to the UK is slow, so I needed to make the coloured ones for cards in time for them to arrive today:

I made a card for each (Mum and Mum-in-law), hope they like them. The coloured roses are rather special – made from imported Yuzen Washi, mounted on to blank cardstock I think they look lovely.

This is a variation of a camelia fold I have yet to try. With 2 colour paper the leaves would be one colour and the rose another, neat:

Designed by Sy Chen, YOU should have a go at this yourself – it is simple and the result is lovely. I am sure your mum would love it – go here for a video demonstration

April, Done and Dusted

| wonko

PHEW!

Looking at this collection of models, I get a little wobbly to be honest. Laying them out on the floor to photograph them I realised how much time I am sinking in to this project – not sure if that is sustainable. Maybe more “rock” origami is required 😛

There were some seriously snarly models this month, many personal milestones, it has been an interesting ride so far – hope my patience, abilities and selection of as yet un-tried models lasts the distance. I gotta do some simpler ones I think, too many Joisel’s or Lang’s in a month is a recipe for fatal paper cuts.

Hope you, the blog reader, are also enjoying the journey.

112: Bunny Box

| wonko

Now all responsible adults are prepping the the imminent visit of the Easter Bunny. This little box is perfect for collecting the spoils of an easter egg hunt (so should be made in advance to avoid disappointment):

Clever use of paper, pockets, easy to fold and actually very bunny-like. A square cut from an A4 page makes a box big enough for the largest haul of mini eggs – an A3 square would make slipper-sized boxes (an idea for “fluffy bunny slippers”?).

Designed by Jacky Chan (do not think it is the kung fu chappie tho it would be cool if it was) as my “white rabbits” for this month (given the “rock” displaced it in it’s rightful place.

You should totally fold some of these for kids you know – easy and quick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9zwCP7dg5o