REPRESENT

There's a reason I don't go that much into representational origami. Sure, I love it and I think it is completely amazing... But every time I try my hand at it I completely fail. I always think that the next time I should be able to do a little better than the last since I've had some practice from the time before, but that's never the case. Regardless, here I am, continuing the battle against making 'realistic' things out of paper.

These are old, but I thought I'd share them.

Maybe another reason I'm less about representational origami is because the geometry isn't as apparent (I mean, of course it's there but it doesn't slap you in the face like a nice tessellation or modular piece does). That said, the amount of incredible mathematical equations, terrifying algorithms and... other crazy math things I don't think I'll ever be able to wrap my brain around is fantastic! Maybe that's why I'm so bad at them.

I'll keep practicing and hopefully I'll be able to fold  a paper dragon battling a paper phoenix amongst paper smoke in a paper thunderstorm one day....

PAPER DONUT

At last, the long awaited post #101. Here she is, I'll skip right to the good stuff.

Came across this lovely paper design by Maria Garcia Monera and Juan Monterde (pattern here + the coolest flickr ever). 24 crescents come together to form a delightfully mesmerizing donut shape - or more accurately, a 'torus'. I found great joy in learning about this geometric surface which is created by a 2D closed circle (or curved shape) revolved around an axis to form a 3D solid. Cool stuff right there. Well, here's a paper torus and I like it a lot. *Apologies for the out of focus image, it's not easy to drop what you're doing to take process shots when you're as excited as I was*

Mathy!

HAPPY 100TH POST!

I've had this blog for about 2 years and honestly did not know if I would be able keep it going for this long. It's not the greatest of milestones, sure, but 100 origami posts is something to celebrate in my mind! I hope whoever is out there reading in the cyberworld has gotten at least a glimmer of inspiration or simply a joyful smile out of my little paper endeavors. I know that for me, this blog has been a source of excitement and happiness whenever I sit down to write a post and to share pictures of paper projects I found really fun (or sometimes not so fun).

This post is veering even further away from what we call 'origami' (because it isn't origami). But throughout these past 2 years and past 100 posts, I've realized that I'm not just that origami-girl, I'm more of an all-around-paper-girl. It's not that single form of manipulation that get's me all giddy, it's the medium itself. Lately, I've been exploring something that seems to be a lot more mathy: Drawing up polyhedron nets by calculating the angles between triangles (and making a ton of mistakes in the process), cutting them out and reassembling them from their 2D shapes into a 3D form.

This is the net for a pentakisdodecahedron (possibly my new favourite shape! It's gorgeous!). 12 faceted pentagons (aka 60 triangles) assemble to form this globe-ball beauty. I want to make a million more (and I just might). I've got more of these constructed polyhedra on the way, as I am currently obsessed. This was the most recent one I've made and recently acquired a tripod (thanks Dad) so I was able to document the 'making-of' which I thought was really exciting! I'll be posting the other ones I've made soon - hopefully the collection will keep getting bigger!

.... Now, for this blog, I'm hoping to keep this up even after I'm done school. I know the paper exploring won't stop, so I don't see why the documentation should either. Here's to 100s more posts in the future! 

CHEATING

[Insert witty/surprised comment about posting twice in one week here]. Yes, as it has become apparent in my origami years, the activity comes in waves. Sometimes I have too much time on my hands and origami is the best outlet or other times I don't have time but it somehow injects itself into my life anyways. Then sadly there are the times in between those where I really am too busy or I really am "too busy" (aka lazy). Well, at the moment, it seems there's a nice balance between being busy and being lazy so I have managed to get some origami into my days.

That being said, I may have stumbled upon one of the easiest kusudamas out there. For two reasons. One: each unit requires only two folds. Unreal! And two: it kind of cheats. Majorly cheats actually. It breaks one of the main rules of origami in fact. Glue! But I'm over that whole 'no scissors, no glue' thing. That's just a bonus if it follows the rules. In the end, if it looks badass and has the geometry to back it up then it's a win (and therefor counts as origami).

Anyways, that was a lot of blabbing and not a lot of getting-on-with-it... Here's the COFO kusudama by Falk Brito. It is built up of these cute little roundish triangular pyramids which are made of the simplest two-fold units. 20 triangular pyramids, 3 units each, 60 7x5 pieces of paper yield this simple but pretty model. 

I think the paper works with this model - it gives it that extra touch of extravagance. Thanks to my friend Ashley who gave the paper to me in a random act of superkindness!

FEBRUARY BLOSSOMS

Surprise! The blog is still alive! In a spree of procrastination, I found myself browsing Youtube (as one does), and came across a great and magical origami project which I couldn't resist attempting. After months of posting hiatus, I shall happily present it to you now. The Revealed Flower by Gonchar Valentina has a lovely hidden secret within it that is best presented not in still images but in a .gif!

As you can see, this clever design starts off as a... Actually, I don't know what this polyhedron is called. I'll call it a penta-pyramid dodecahedron for now and if anyone could enlighten me, that would be excellent. Anyways, yeah, pretty little flowers pop up from this penta-pyramid dodecahedron to create something even more complex, that I won't even try to identify! In the dreary month of January, it is nice to think of Spring.

Though the effect is cute with the multiple colours, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I could have had the inside-surprise colour to just be a single one rather than six. Too bad I don't have 60 pieces of the same coloured paper. Other observations: not the cleanest of models, but it's been a while! And forgive me for photographing on my work table - coffee ring stains and cutting marks abound. Now, to end off, I'll say that I do have work to post... It's just a matter of documenting. So if you really are bored, check back from time to time and there may be another surprise in it for you. Maybe. Ta!

PINK & GOLD

So I wanted to make a bigger version of this and in the process of finding the right piece of paper, I also found a couple of spray paint cans kickin' around. It seemed obvious what I had to do. After a bit of testing, turns out that spray paint doesn't really affect the paper that much when I fold it - in fact, it makes the folds crispier and even stronger. So here's the outcome of a pink- and gold-speckled Flower Tower by Chris Palmer which I thought lent perfectly to the effect.

STARS AND SQUARES

Saw this pattern on Andrea Russo's Flickr and liked it (and thought it was easy enough that someone like me could figure it out just by looking at it...) It's pretty cool. The little concentric square folds contrasted by the squares makes me pretty happy.

LIL' ACORN

Had a lamp without a shade. Made a shade outta paper. True story. She's a lil' acorn who likes to play with shadows.

CORRUGATION EXPLORATION

Lately I've found myself more and more fascinated with corrugations. You know, just like when you were a little kid in art class and your teacher asked you to make a fan out of construction paper... Only a little bit more complex. Nothing much to explain, other than the simple manipulation of the mountains, valleys, mountains, valleys...

So I guess you could say, I have been a bit busy!....

This kind of thing is just too easy to play around with when you're sitting there with a piece of scrap paper. Dangerously easy, as  in it can completely engulf you when you get too into it (example: the last picture...) and then hours go by! 

1-2: From Folding Techniques for Designers - From Sheet to Form
3: My brain
4: Andrea Russo's Flickr
5: My brain 

FLOWER TOWER POWER

I honestly don't remember the last time I was this excited about origami. A fair point would be that, yes, I haven't actually done much in the past few months (or at least as much as I should be!). Last night though, I had a little spree after coming across this video... I first saw Chris Palmer make his Flower Tower a few years ago in Between the Folds (go watch, it's pure magic) and since then scoured the interwebs to see how I could make one myself. Christ Palmer himself said that there was no way he'd be making a diagram of the steps anytime soon because of certain *stressful* steps involved (see video below). But, obviously, Youtube did what it does best, and delivered me a tutorial by the man himself. And I cried a bit. Then made it.

Firstly, here's the clip from Between the Folds of the master creating one himself, explaining his way through it and what makes the design special. So you can see just why I was so into this thing... I highly recommend at least watching 2:40, where you can understand the weird and stressful 'crunch' this piece has to go through to become the beautiful geometric thing it is.

"I'm folding something on something that's already folded and then I'm re-aranging it and putting it back in a different position where some things are released that were trapped inside."

Honestly, I don't even feel like I'm doing it justice but anyways... After an hour of fiddling with paper and letting out yelps of excitement - she is born (she's a girl for some reason). Another piece I've always wanted to make checked off my list.

Here's the Flower:

And here's the Tower:

So it's still my first attempt and it's a bit rough around the edges - but you get it right? I'm going to get my hands on some bigger and more appropriate (sturdier) paper which will probably yield to a much nicer result. But you can still get the gist of it - the dodecagons stacked up on each other which can either pop up to create the 'tower' or collapse to create the 'flower'. Yeah, I love it. A lot. Clever, clever, clever.