1014: Tribute To Eric Joisel – ‘Nude Man #4’

It is a well known fact that Eric Joisel was a sculptor before taking up paper as his medium of choice. Never is it more evident than the figurative human series of nudes he made, of which this is my approximation of #4:

Joisel's Nude man #4

He uses an ingenious grid system, dividing each corner up into 18 radial lines, where they intersect geometry emerges on a square and that geometry provides the landmarks for the base.

Joisel's Nude man #4 views

I had tried 2 different schemes for corner division, failed both times until I realised that, relative to the centre line, the interval is a geometric series that increases the further away you get. In the end I used a CP template to “rough out” the divisions and then with my trusty straight edge, ironed out the anomalies.

Corners of the sheet give you arms and legs, the head is near the top middle and a torturous neck reduction brings the chin down to allow the face to look out. The layers are reminiscent of musculature and indeed, Joisel teased and primped, each model different, few photographed clearly enough to really see what was what.

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Pride

…so, as part of a commission, I decided to explore the concept of “pride”, using a feline metaphor:

I folded a family of lions, designed by Lionel Albertini, and then posed them in a Daiso display box. “Pride” is an interesting concept – we see the lioness, as the head of the family, provider, strong, carer. We see cubs looking up to her. We see the Lion, in the background, as supporter and partner.

pride

I like the minimalist composition of this piece. I used crumpled VOG paper as “grass” and have resisted adding any other decoration, because everything I have tried added makes the family grouping less powerful.

I hope the client likes it, we shall see.

Cymbidium

I was gifted some beautiful but fragile rice paper (paper made with rice plant fibre) that is flecked with gold leaf:
Soft, fabric like I realised it was fairly useless as a folding medium so, armed with some freshly prepared MC, I plastered it to a window in the hope that the addition of sizing to the paper would make it useable. Continue reading

435: Satoshi’s Phoenix 3.5

There are a number of models in the origami world I see as “legendary” – the Phoenix (version 3.5) is one of those:

When I bought Satoshi Kamiya’s works book volume 2 I knew I would one day put myself up against this challenge, I also knew it would take me a while to master it.

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