paper

explorations of folding media

1159: Polly Verity Corrugation

| wonko

Polly Verity is a paper artist I have watched since she came on Instagram (@polyscene)

She has a singular style and a seemingly superhuman touch when it comes to teasing character from paper – her paper silhouettes are like nothing else.

Polly is drawn to the geometry of plain paper, expertly capturing the light and shade that corrugated paper naturally causes.

Today she posted a corrugation that LOOKS curved, but as I bathed in it’s posted beauty, I recognized it had to be a much simpler underlying box-pleated crease pattern, and I knew that I HAD to try it.

Peeling off a 2:1 rectangle from my 90cm Kraft roll (90x45cm resultant sheet), I lay in a longitudinal axis gutter (valley), then added a deeeeep zigzag. This afforded the laying in of standard box-pleat fill-in creases that I then alternated mountain/valley to make the sheet one giant accordion pleat that folds up and on itself (resulting is a stored size that is tiny – 23x2cm).

The joy of this corrugation is that when it opens up, curves emerge from the straight lines – like by magic.

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1158: Wilhelmina the Wyvern

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Flipping through Makoto Yamaguchi’s “Origami Dragons Premium”, as one does, I stumbled across a lovely Wyvern, designed by Chuya Miyamoto:

Digging through my paper stash I found the perfect sheet for this model, a purple spotty Do paper that was part of a prize I won from Phạm Hoàng Tuấn’s Vietnamese origami paper shop pre-pandemic, so decided to give it a whirl.

My philosophy when approaching a super-complex origami design is based around “fuck around and find out” or more politely “fold until I finish or it fails”, and this model was a real treat.

A truly great design and fold sequence takes into account the material, not overly stressing it, managing accumulating layers and locking things together to keep things tidy. This design was so satisfying to fold, and in combination with the paper choice the resultant model is stunning.

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1156: OnePiece Den Den Mushi

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One Piece aficionados know that a Den Den Mushi is a telepathetic snail used as an important communication device in-world:

Communicating via snail beings new meaning to the term “snail mail” but I remember seeing the snails in the Live-action remake and wondered if they existed as Origami.

To my delight, Tong Liu (G.T. Liu) designed one and released the diagrams in Bogota 2013’s conference booklet so I knew I needed to folded it.

I decided to try using some of my Kozo and Cotton paper that I made at Dion Channer’s Paper Mill in Gympie back in February 2024. The paper from this session was fairly soft and a little fabric-like (because, like, I really did not know what I was doing), but with a little TLC and some treatment it was perfect for this design.

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1154: Glossy Black Cockatoo

| wonko

As part of my 5-Aussie Animal series, I present my Glossy Black Cockatoo:

As an endangered species, I am thrilled to be able to have a go at representing it in Origami. Reference images of the Cockatoo show it has a striking red flash in it’s tail features in an otherwise black bird.

Folding this model has shown me how hard it is to photograph such intense black paper.

Folded from a 60cm square of black Kozo with sugar cane inclusions – the resultant model has flecky shiny deep black, and is quite gorgeous. I rendered the red flash with red Kozo containing mango leaves – I laminated strips over the pleated tail feathers and am really happy with the result.

I decided to go with a “about to land” pose, so fashioned a wire stand with a ground outline shape that is meant to mimic the outline of the shadow of the landing bird – I think it works – what do you think?

After a lot of research looking for cockatoo origami diagrams, I found a diagrammed sequence designed and diagramed by Arthur Champigneul in the 2022 Origami de Bogota conference proceedings – this design forms the basis of my model – I have added some features and shaping to more closely align to the Glossy Black Cockatoo.

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1153: Tanteidan “Cubes”

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At any moment, I have a half-dozen Tanteidan magazines, from my subscription to the Japanese Origami Society, on my chair-side table yet to be filed:

Flicking through them, it is impossible not to be intrigued by the challenges, fold tidbits, crease patterns and full diagram sequences.

Sadly, I contrast it to British Origami Society Magazine – I used to subscribe but let that membership lapse when I got to the situation that I folded nothing from them for 4 issues in a row.

These models are modular “cubes” designed by Jun Maekawa – delicious geometric puzzles with radically different design methodologies. The “Cat Ear” cube is a 6-module cube that is related to the “Business Card” cube I have made into a huge Menger sponge.

Paper friction and tabs and pockets offer structural strength, properly interleaving the tabs make it a really stable piece of geometry.

The “Zig Zag” cube is different – it uses 2 pieces of paper total – each “half” of the cube is folded complete (internal and external surfaces) from a sheet of Duo paper. Ingenious in design, fiendish the first time you try to link the 2 halves, delightful together and apart.

I love these little gadgets – every Tanteidan has at least 2, I have barely scratched the surface of them.

Green Tree Frog

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Working on an Australian Wildlife series, naturally I had to include Satoshi Kamiya’s lovely Green Tree Frog:

I had a day-glow lime green sheet of Hanji in my stash, gifted to me from a collegue who brought it back from Seoul a few years back. I decided I wanted to treat it and colour it with some of my acrylic inks.

I misted the sheet with water, wet a large glass window, rolled the damp hanji onto the wet glass and then coated it with a thick coating of methyl cellulose (MC).

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Kangaroo

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As part of an Aussie animal series, it would be wrong to not include a Kangaroo:

The best Origami Kangaroos are designed by Gen Hagiwara – this is Gen’s 2013 design, a lovely mother ‘roo with a joey in her pouch. Fortunately it featured in Tanteidan Magazine #147 – part of my growing collection of JOAS origami magazines.

Starting with a 50cm square of rust Lokta paper – a Nepalese paper made from the inner bark of a species of Daphne, a remarkably durable paper that has natural resistance to bugs, mildew etc.

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Short-Beaked Echidna

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There are only a few origami figures I MUST have in my collection – Steven Casey’s “Echidna” is one of these:

This adorable little monotreme is covered in one of my favourite square-grid tessellations, but skillfully crafted to allow all the other body bits to be where they need to.

I bought the British Origami Society booklet describing how to fold this treasure as soon as I knew it existed, and have folded it a few times now. Some sequences are nightmare fuel – this one is just so enjoyable to fold.

I recently received a shipment of paper from Origami-shop.com and in it was a 65cm 11 colour pack of the NEW Shadow Thai paper. I last bought it in 40cm square form but it was THICK so to my delight this version is thinner and takes complex folds really nicely. I chose this fur-like colour because it most closely matched the quill and hair colour of an echidna.

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Lyrebird

| wonko

One of the few applications of the Miura-Ori (map fold) that I can tolerate folding is to make the fantail of Satoshi Kamiya’s Lyrebird.

I had a half-sheet of leaflitter paper in my stash (bought some 8 years ago) and thought it fitting to fold a bird that lives in the leaflitter out of it.

This is not my first fold of this beautiful model, but it is my best. Having good, thin, tough paper helps as accuracy is everything when folding the base – so many opportunities for crease misalignment exist and, as the paper thickness ramps up, there is bulk there.

Interestingly, the “bulk” ends up being in the body area which then naturally “fattens up” the bird in a really naturalistic way.

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1152: Platypus

| wonko

Browsing a Korean Origami Convention book (the 6th – 2015), as you do, I stumbled across a Platypus I had not seen before:

Designed by Fernando Gilgado, this genius design uses duo paper to isolate the beak, tail and legs from the body in a really interesting way.

After some simple pre-creasing, you collapse to a base that looks really useful for all sorts of long critters with head/tail and 2 pairs of legs (like a crocodile, say)

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1151: Riccardo Foschi’s “Rabbit”

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There were many standouts from the epic Origami World Marathon (OWM5), the rabbit taught by Riccardo Foschi was one such:

So much character teased from a 16×16 grid, this delicious comic rabbit stands on its own and is dry-shaped, without the need for any glue or MC.

My first fold used Tant paper, and was smaller but useful to explore the structure. In this model’s case, a thicker more robust paper actually helped with the shaping – I managed a lovely plump belly and rounded face, arms and legs with toes/fingers implied by subtle divots.

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1150: Star Katrina

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As a closet botanist, I am interested in floral geometry – many flowers are based on pentagons:

This is “Star Katrina”, a beautiful kusudama designed by Xander Perrott. Folded from 30 x 2:root 3 rectangles cleaved from squares of Tuttle Indigo dye duo paper over the last couple of days.

The unit is based on a tight triangle grid – fairly easy to fold accurately and the locking mechanism is so positive that this kusudama is held together via paper tension and friction only (no glue, truly, none).

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Display

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My annual origami display at Holland Park Library was installed this morning:

Cabinet 1 views

Included is a broad range of origami styles from a huge and diverse collection of designers, folded from a varied collection of papers.

Cabinet 2 views

I am trying to get better at not crowding the display cabinets – sometimes less is more to allow individual models to shine – let me know how I went.

If you visited, I would love your impressions, comments and suggestions for future displays.

Get directions here

1148: Flying Dragon

| wonko

Wrapping up an editing spot on a forthcoming new book, I decided to fold Tu Kaiming’s design for a Flying Western Dragon:

It is rare to see a dragon posed mid-flight, and I like the approach taken here.

Oddly, it is usually westerners that think dragons need wings to fly – but they bring a dynamism that it is difficult to achieve without them. I also like the styling (ribs and other details) – the ribs remind me of the Xenomorph I just finished also – a nice detail. The head is simple, horns suggested – a nice balance of form and function.

Using a 50cm square of rust-coloured Satogami (my first sheet from a paper pack I got from Origami-shop.com) the base creases are easy but the model escalates pretty quickly to become a tight bundle. The Satogami took the contortions and flex tension pretty well (even during a dense “turn this part inside out as a complex reverse-fold sink). Satogami is a heavy paper with an interesting subtle texture – I must use it some more.

It is clear that Origami is currently experiencing a Renaissance – so many new designs emerging from everywhere, it is also wonderful that we are getting to see new designs from all over the world.

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The Perfect Organism

| wonko

I have long been drawn to the particular thrill of Science-Fiction based horror – few franchises do it like Alien:

This Xenomorph, designed by Kade Chan (you too can have a go at folding it here) was folded from a 60cm square of Crumpled VOG paper – a rare find in my stash, near last remnant of a purchase some 10 years ago when you could still buy VOG paper.

My previous fold of this model was in crispy Kraft in 2013, and I had always meant to return to it and fold a presentation fold. With the release of “Alien Romulus” in cinemas, I figured the chest burster was about ready to pop.

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