I want to pretend that we have a discernible Autumn in Brisbane, indeed there is a moderation of temperatures, but we lack the temperature drops and seasonal flora to clearly mark the change of season:
Having been places that have deciduous trees, and seen the glorious colour changes in leaves from yellow to red and all colours in between I appreciate the milder climate but miss the beauty. Continue reading
On the the pleasures (there are many) of visiting Japan at the moment is the onset of spring, and the flowering of cherry blossom trees:
I remember vividly the glorious show, in colours from deep red to white/lemon, trees around Kyoto and Miyajima being particularly lovely. Continue reading
“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I’m half crazy….”:
There were fewer chilling cinematic moments than the last conscious moments of HAL, the conflicted computer in Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey. The slow disappearance of cognisance is so beautifully portrayed. Continue reading
So I was on the phone to my mum, as you do, and she asked if I could make Scotch Thistles out of origami:
Naturally, I blame Canada, as any good Southparkian would:
This is Inayoshi Hidehisa’s Maple Leaf chopstick holder but I rather think it works (at this scale at least) much better as a bookmark. Continue reading
I love models by Robert Lang, I find I fold them when I need order, therapy, calm. This is a collection of his Orchids, described in his book “Origami Design Secrets”. Something about the mathematical elegance of this flower lends itself to careful modelling and pretty staging. I had a bunch of opalescent 6″ squares in delicate pastel colours so originally folded separate flowers and tried to attach them in a sort of free-form montage.
They look better on a stem, so re-thought the mounting, used florist’s wire and tape to build a plausible “spray” and (shhh) used some craft glue to affix the flowers to the ends of each stickey-outey bit.
Working to the diagonal here, with an odd number of blooms works quite nicely I think, coupled with the corrugated (I folded a fan) hand-made gold-flecked tissue the total scene is quite pleasing. Continue reading
People who know me understand my obsession with folding. It is so easy to turn up my procrastination engine to 11 by asking me about the “possibility” of a commission or fold for a purpose:
MJ approached me AGES ago (I have been sitting on this post for 2+ months) and asked if I could fold something to brighten up a wall in Nikki’s workroom. Having just folded some sunflowers I figured they would look nice in a shadowbox frame. 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
I find it fascinating that there are so many models and folding techniques I have yet to try. The “Magic Rose Cube” is a case in point – I am amazed I have never folded it:
Such a beautiful little modular, 3 pieces the flower, 3 slightly different pieces the leaves, slots together into a cube easily, unfurls beautifully. Continue reading
Faced with a brief hiatus before marking became crippling, I set about to re-master the free form folding technique of the Sato Rose:
I have found many guides for Naomiki Sato’s rose that do precise pre-folding, invariably I get lost or end up with a bloom that is so geometrically perfect that it is not very realistic, so went searching for a technique that allowed for natural bloom variation.
Two years ago (or thereabouts) I had mastered the knack of turning a free-form Sato rose, but then lost it – not sure why. I mangled dozens of sheets of paper trying to get it back to no success. “Free form” is a term I use to describe a process that has nearly NO landmarks – you fold it to about here, then back a little and so on. With such a complicated fold, mistakes early ruin the later fold as they compound out of control. Continue reading
As part of my JOAS membership, I get sent magazines with models to try – a really excellent collection of complex models from the worlds best designers. When I saw Satoshi Kamiya’s Dragonfly, I was really scared of it.
The level of pleat management and re-arrangement of flaps and layers is truly terrifying when viewed as a whole.
As a “treat”, to reward my marking progress (I am a teacher, I set assessment but hate marking it) I allowed myself to complete a couple of steps each sitting. This fold has taken place over the period of 3 weeks, a little at a time. the advantage of this method is that I did not get freaked out by what was to come, just concentrating on the couple of steps I was allowed to complete. Continue reading
Not sure if you have seen it but I enjoyed “Guardians of the Galaxy” – nice escapist buddy movie whose adventure that does not withstand much scrutiny from a plot perspective. Love the characters, particular Rocket Racoon and Groot.
When I first saw Groot on screen, I knew he was perfect origami material, resolving to design something similar to my tree model for him, but Luciffer Chong beat me to the punch with his simple yet effective Crease Pattern.
I see influences all over for this model – lovely joisel-like hands, Acuna-like arm formations, I am sure I will fold him again – might be fun on some rough textured hand-made paper also. Continue reading
…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
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
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
