paper

explorations of folding media

Travel Fold 2019

| wonko

We are about to travel again and, as is our tradition, we will leave origami folds wherever we go.

We decided this time it would be a Koala – they are cute and a definitive Australian animal (albeit critically endangered) so I set about to find a design I liked.

After much to-ing and fro-ing I returned to a model I first folded in 2011, designed by Jozsef Zsebe, from Hungary of all places – interestingly the best Koala designs generally come from places other than Oz – go figure.

I manufactured fur paper, using wet polar bear fleece. Do not start on how a Koala is not a bear, I know, but … meh … the texture works and the colour gradation (I found a dirty polar bear) from ears to arse works nicely I think.

I have committed this fold to memory (no mean feat given the state of my brain at the moment) an look forward to leaving them all around Vietnam and Cambodia.

Handmade Paper

| wonko

So in a recent workshop, I made a bunch of different types of paper, time to try it out I thought. I had 3xA4 sheets and 2xA3 sheets pulled from the white board + Day Lilly + Lemongrass vat, so decided to have a go at folding something from that.

handmade paper
White board, Day Lilly, Lemongrass hand-made(by me) paper

I remember the ladies of PAQ talking about Chinese Threadbooks – an ancient paperfolding tradition from China. Having already folded one using cheap decorative paper, I thought I would throw some handmade paper at one also.

threadbook complete

There are examples, hundreds of years old, of clever multi-compartment paper widgets, used to store silk threads (from weavers and embroiderers), and there is some exploration of the folding theory on teh internet, but you gotta dive deep.

threadbook compartments
Continue reading →

Hands-on Paper Making with PAQ

| wonko

As a newly subscribed member of The Papermakers and Artists Qld, I went along to a hands-on paper making day unsure what to expect.

Papermakers and Artists Hands-on Paper day

I knew I needed to bring some botanical fibre (so I chopped up some of my lemongrass bush trimmings), lunch and a baked treat to share, along with hat, sturdy shoes etc. We set up tables outside and set about the business of making paper.

Continue reading →

948: “Snow Crystal” Hex-box

| wonko

I have been looking for tidy self-contained folds based on A4 paper that hides the raw edges, so I could try my lovely thistle-based hand-made paper (from the ladies at Paper Makers and Artists):

snow flake box complete

This box looks like a traditional fold, but seems to be credited fairly recently to Sweet Paper, a paper art shop/tutorial site I stumbled across in my musings. Not sure of the attribution however, as many of their featured designs I have seen (and folded) from other artists.

lid and base. Lid is 3/7ths of the sheet, base is the rest

The paper, with lovely rough chopped scotch thistle fibres and other pulp is fairly crisp, fairly thin but had raggedy (beautiful) decal edges that I did not really want to have to chop off.

Continue reading →

930: Ground Control to Major Tom …

| wonko

…take your protein pills and put your helmet on.

I have waited an age to fold this model – I was waiting on finding some large format duo paper. When visiting IKEA, I came upon delicious 70cm wide rolls of duo Kraft paper (black on natural and white on natural), and bought a bunch of rolls. 

Folding a 24×24 grid on a virgin square of white/natural Kraft, the collapse lines laid in, the collapse proceeds to the first stage then you re-work each stickey-outey bit. Continue reading →

922: Modular Kangaroo

| wonko

I am still on the lookout for a nice travel fold – something I can leave as a stealthy “thankyou” to the hosts of places we will stay overseas:

This is Seiji Nishikawa’s Kangaroo – an amazing 3 part modular that I decided to try folding using hand-made paper.

The model is in 3 parts – upper body and lower body are folded with the same size bit of paper, the joey is a similar fold to the upper body folded much smaller. Continue reading →

Paper Makers and Artists Qld

| wonko

On the way home from the Doctor, I chanced upon a sign outside a re-purposed Scout den just up from the road from me. I googled it, as you do “Wellers Hill Arts Hub” and discovered, to my delight, that one of the member groups was Queensland Papermakers and Artists.I contacted the president, via email, and was invited to the first meeting this year. How wonderful – a room full of talented artists, all passionate paper makers and me, someone who wants to learn how to make paper and fold the handmade sheets – huge potential. Continue reading →

615: (65/365) Spheroid

| wonko

Who could have foreseen that the concurrence of a series of parallel mountain folds interspersed between a series of concentric parabolic valley folds would result in something with such sculptural simplicity?:

This is Jun Mitani’s “Spheroid”, well, at least as close as I could get to it by guessing the intervals between parallel lines and the curve on the parabolic ones. Continue reading →

583: (33/365) Hearty Cube

| wonko

This delightful 6-part modular cube is designed by Meenakshi Mukerji:

The modules cleverly isolate a colour-changed heart at the centre of a “U” shaped module that forms one side of the cube. Continue reading →

572: (22/365) Origami On The Brain

| wonko

Those who know me realise I am a little obsessed with paper folding, some would say to excess. The truth of the matter is I am constantly amazed what you can coax a flat sheet to do. I think I missed my calling as a materials engineer:

I like models that I can visualise, as I am folding. Equally, I am fascinating when there is a tangle and then, out of the mess, something wonderful emerges. Continue reading →

571: (21/365) OMG!!!!

| wonko

Needless to say the media is abuzz with reactions to Trump’s inauguration. Let us hope that the he does not become the “Bane” of their existence (even though part of his speech was plagiarised from the Marvel Universes’ fictitious tyrant presidential coup, I am sure this is merely coincidence):

One has to have hope in the power of intellect, value of human dignity, common sense and sane application of spray tanning solutions. Continue reading →

554: (4/365) Shuki Kato’s Simple Dragon

| wonko

There are many subjects for origami models that are sort of a “holy grail” of folding, dragons are one such thing:

This is Shuki Kato’s “Simple” Dragon – the term simple is a relative term, naturally, as most of Shuki’s models are not for beginners and this little charmer is no exception.

I decided to try it on 50cm Daiso origami paper, fully expecting the paper to fail (as it is fairly ordinary wood-pulp paper) but I managed to coax it into a relatively huge dragon that has simple features but recognizably dragony morphology. Continue reading →

No Dragon, Just Head

| wonko

Determined not to let Shuki Kato’s “Western Dragon” beat me, I decided to isolate the part of the model that I had failed on each of the 4 times I have attempted this nightmare of bent paper – the head:

Using the crease pattern, I isolated the corner that is the head and made that section HUGE, then ignoring the rest of the model (that I have successfully folded twice) I only did instructions that effected the bit of the crease pattern that I had on my 60cm square section.

Yee gods! Continue reading →

548: Making Your Dollar Go Further

| wonko

My son and his partner (Hi Matt and Alix!) came back from a recent trip to Canada and the US and had some greenbacks left over in their wallet.548moneyturtle

They are paper, you can fold them, there is a whole branch of Origami that does this intensively, led by artists like Won Park.

Continue reading →

Stellated Washi Icosahedron

| wonko

When friends travel, often they find lovely small bits of Washi. Packs of this are full of a myriad of lovely traditional prints, rich colours often embossed and overlayed with gold.

The tricksey bit is to work out what to do with it – given it’s size and often the overpowering beauty of the design.icosahedron Continue reading →