Starting with 2 squares of paper, some simple creasing, an odd thing happens – a solid shape emerges:
This squarish donut is odd, it slides together with nearly no folding and creates an interesting geometry. Continue reading
598: (48/360) Neal Elias’ “Rocking Horse”
This model is testament to the design genius of Neal Elias:
Taking the bird base, and a colour change, we fashion a jockey (with the cutest little cap) atop a rocking horse. I love the detail here and will probably fold this again, only with a slightly bigger bit of paper. Continue reading
597: (47/360) Jun Maekawa’s “Gemini”
Puddling around in an old Tanteidan magazine, I noticed that the first few pages are usually devoted to smaller folding projects – often modular in nature:
This 2-part modular is fascinating and initially I found it baffling as the diagrams were not really clear (the illustrator was trying to represent stages that were 3d in 2d line drawings) and the instructions are all in Japanese. Continue reading
596: (46/360) Keigo Matsuda’s “Peter Rabbit”
Now it seems Beatrix Potter has gone out of favour in the age of political correctness, but there is no denying the charm of her stable of animal characters as they anthropomorphise through their day:
This is “Peter Rabbit” – well, more correctly it is supposed to be the rabbit from “Through the Looking Glass” but the colouring I used is more Peter that White Rabbit in my opinion. I have never really understood the Victorian tradition of partially clothed animals (he is wearing no pants, right?) but that is carried over to cartoon characters also which is a little odd. Continue reading
595: (45/360) Valentines Day
Now I know there are those who say that Valentines Day is a Hallmark business opportunity, but I happen to think that celebrating someone you love is a good thing:
My valentine loves to read, so I thought a pair of Washi Deluxe bookmarks would not go astray. Continue reading
594: (44/360) Shore Crab
A folder I follow on Facebook asked for volunteers to test his diagrams for a new crab design so naturally I put my hand up:
This is Tuan Hoang Pham’s “Shore Crab” design, a delightfully dense creation that is morphologically fairly close to a ghost crab in my opinion. Continue reading
593: (43/360) Neal Elias’ “Andres Segovia”
When a member of the British Origami Society, I purchased “Selected works of Neal Elias” and continue to find gems within it – this is one such treasure:
Modeled after a classical guitarist in 1970, this model starts with a 3×1 rectangle (8×23 to be exact) and, via miracles of box pleating (a pioneering technique back then) we tease an artist and his instrument. Continue reading
592: (42/360) Sooo…Mr Whitehouse, Can you Fold a Paper Plane?
I have lost count of the times I have been asked this by students, presumably based on the assumption that because I fold paper I must make a mean paper plane:
Truth be told when I make simple paper darts they fly terribly, not sure why. Many of the worlds great origamists started with paper planes – I did not. Continue reading
591: (41/360) Miura Ori Fold
Paper-influenced materials engineering has gained incredible momentum in the last few years as ancient and modern folding techniques get applied to modern materials:
The Miura Ori fold is a fascinating corrugation that takes large flat surfaces, divides them up into “shallow” parallelograms, re-arranges the creases into alternate rows of mountain and valley across the folded field to make a self-organising surface. Continue reading
590: (40/360) Daisy
“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
589: (39/360) Box with Hinged Lid
I seem to have an endless fascination with clever origami boxes – this one caught my eye and I knew I needed to try and fold it:
Anna Kastlunger has designed a nifty scalable box with an integrated hinged lid that is delightful and possibly useful for precious things. Continue reading
588: (38/360) Sipho Mabona’s “Swallow”
When planning origami models that will be good for permanent display, locks and paper tension matter as a model will try to unfold itself:
This genius design results in a fairly faithful swallow, the body is rounded, beak and head cleverly proportioned, tings and tail streamlined – it looks like it would fly. Continue reading
587: (37/360) Spider on a Leaf
Trolling around in the members area of Origami USA, I found a model that looks like it is made of 2 separate pieces of paper and decided to give it a try:
This is Diego Fernando Becerra Ramirez’s “Spider On Leaf”, a clever use of paper that fashions, via a bird base, a spider and leaf, managing a colour change in the process. Continue reading
586: (36/360) Gaikotsu Figure
Now I am not really one for card-based rpg/gattle games – Pokemon, Yugioh, Magic the gathering, but I know they have a huge and passionate fan-base. Trolling through a Tanteidan I found a curious little skeletal character and decided to fold it:
A modular, in 3 bits (head, shoulders, knees+toes … everybody sing..), it struck me as a cutie little skeleton.
I then went on the interwebs only to discover this character is part of a vast universe collection of macabre boney critters that battle each other, almost certainly have anime series dedicated to them and a number of animated series in Japan. Continue reading
585: (35/365) Many Hands Make Light Work
As a teacher and pastoral care “tutor”, I am always looking for ways to get kids working together. At the beginning of the year the tutor group room is a mixed-year level (6-12) mixture of strangers and established friends so “GTK” exercises (Getting To Know you) are great icebreakers if you can get them actually talking and working together:
A few years back I struck on an idea to get kids collaboratively folding an origami mega-structure. The model is fairly simple – I taught the newbies (in this case the year 6 and 7 students) a simple modular unit. They then had to go teach another kid in the group, who in turn taught another. The central metaphor is “the WHOLE is greater than the sum of the parts”, “many hands make light work”, “we are as strong as the weakest link” … and so on.
