I am Pegasus, my name means “horse”:
I have had this “must try someday” pile for ages, thought I would give it a go. The fold sequence is tricky and that was not helped but the fact that the square I started with was not .. actually … square. Continue reading
So I ended up scoring an unexpected free afternoon so decided that serious paper torture would be fun:
Gridding then a breathtaking collapse took 4 hours to begin with. I knew I was up for a marathon fold to finish. Annoyingly I did not get this finished before fatigue took me – sometimes you get that. Continue reading
After a brutally busy term, it is time to recharge, dance a little, be thankful for the good things that surround you:
This is Jeremy Shafer’s “The Dancers” – a charming little pleating exercise that takes a square (in this case a 15cm Japanese foil square) and, via a clever set of collapses, isolates 2 people, joined at the hand. Continue reading
Few would argue that the Tsuru (crane) is the quintessential origami figure. Everybody starts there, the form is so familiar and the skills necessary to fold it form the backbone of so many models:
While I have tried many variations of this model, few compare to Riccardo Foschi’s “feathered Tsuru”, a glorious and complex variation with such beautiful wings. Continue reading
Reporting is a beast of a thing, particularly semester reporting where we seem to joust with nit-picking grammar on parts of a report that parents do not read. Slaying the beast is particularly satisfying:
This is Riccardo Foschi’s Baby Lizard Dragon … thing. I found the CP and a photo of the finished model and thought ‘how hard could this be?’. Continue reading
A colleague recently spent an extended time back home on Kythera, a lovely island in Greece:
Returning to work is never easy after such time away, but I can feel and understand her longing to return. This shell is meant to evoke dream memories of Kythera. Continue reading
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it probably is a duck:
This is an intense little model that eats paper like few others. The body is heavy and shaping I found difficult because of the many layers. Continue reading
Pressed for time, I folded a model I had meant to fold a month ago:
This is Oriol Esteve’s “Nosy Cat” – a lovely little cat that in my first fold looks more like a kitten. Continue reading
Le Papillon de Nuit translates, roughly as “The Night Butterfly” – a charming fold with a lovely detailed abdomen:
Unlike the other La Fosse butterflies, this one works and then re-works layers on the wings, making the finished model smaller but unique in shape. Continue reading
Catching up, finally, and continuing exploration of the form, this is a luna moth: apparently the main difference between a moth and a butterfly is that moths typically do not have winds that meet above the body – I may have just made that up:
I like the slight “swallowtail” formation here – lots of work pre butterfly formation in getting proportions right makes this seem graceful. Continue reading
Yes, I know, it is a day late, but i have been busy marking, so, yeah:
This is another Michael LaFosse butterfly – more fancy than most with the pleaty zig zags adding decorative touches. Continue reading
Continuing my exploration of the butterfly form, where better to look than a lovely papillon from Michael LaFosse’s “Butterflies” bible:
This lovely little flapper again uses bicolour paper cleverly, has a nice efficiency of final model size for starting paper size and was fun to fold. Continue reading
Scrumbling through my “must fold list” I came across a curious hand-drawn diagram set from Spain and decided to give it a whirl:
After much torturing (I started with a 35cm square) the result is a rather lovely goat. I think this is my favourite farmyard animal so far – lovely proportions, fantastic modelling potential. Continue reading
Dragons are an origami staple (although using staples is cheating!):
I am always on the lookout for a nice design and Hojyo Takashi’s Dragon is no exception. Continue reading
As I continue to explore the butterfly form, I am amazed by the similarities and differences in approaches taken by origami designers:
It seems the references are firmly divided on what the collective noun for butterflies is. Some say swarm, some flight, others wing. What do you think?
I am on the lookout for others – suggestions please.
