memo cube

Chaos 2: Scrunch Fly

2012-01-02T16:06:00.002Z

Well here is the folding diagram I drew for the Stealth and Scrunch Fly that I previously mentioned. The diagram curiously starts after you have first folded the paper in a traditional union jack and then bisect two adjacent triangles along the top straight edge. I am not sure why I missed that out. But the description I gave before still holds. You fold the fly, undo it, fold it in half, scrunch it up, unscrunch it up and refold the fly now with texture.

This fits into my chaos origami style at an early stage as it is more textural than structural. This structural chaos is in the Crystal Flower and now the sphere experiments also mentioned recently.

Chaos 4: The Quidditch Accident

2011-11-17T10:57:00.004Z

So as I was saying I decided to crush an origami cube around a clay sphere to see what fold patterns arose and it was surprisingly informative. In a shortish time I was able to emulate some of the patterns to make similar curves to the ones that naturally occurred from the crushed cube.

It wasn't until I came close to finishing the more egg shaped spherish thing that i realised what I had done. The excess paper turned out to be very wing like and it was looking very Harry Potter Quidditch Snitch indeed.

I apologise for this and can only say I learned my lesson and made a more cauliflower like version to atone.

I am now working on making more robust versions of my platonic solids that can be crushed around spheres to make more hideous creations.

Chaos 3: The Origami Sphere 1

2011-11-17T10:32:00.003Z

Sorry to have skipped Chaos 2 but that is an origami fly that involves folding the entire fly model, dissassembling it, folding it in half, crushing it, uncrushing it, and refolding it. The design is one of the first I have illustrated by hand and I will find the drawings soon and post it.

So... Chaos 3: The Origami Sphere 1.
I have a plan to make an origami sphere. Much like any 'plan' with origami such an idea takes a long time to articulate. I like the idea of an origami sphere as it is the perversity of taking a flat square and constructing the purest of curved 3D objects from it. This has lead to frustration and the image I have as my profile is in fact one of my early crushed pieces where I realised I could crush a piece of paper into a closer approximation of a sphere than I can fold one. It does irk me that I could not refold such a piece but as a base line it is strangely helpful.

So recently I had the idea of crushing an origami cube (better known as an origami balloon) around a clay sphere to see what folds it produced. And that is exactly what I did.

Chaos 1: The Crystal Flower

2011-09-15T08:00:00.004+01:00

I just like grand headings I think. In origami there is room for chaos. That is to say it is possible to make a design that incorporates random elements. This is currently helping me resolve a long term goal which I will explain later but I thought a few older pieces of random origami might be good. I have made a few 'wrong' origami things in my time by, for example, starting a paper crane with a crease that is not down the middle and then trying to make all the other folds work. It is possible and I have made cranes and crabs this way that are quite wrong looking. From this exercise was born the crystal flower. This piece involves picking a random point on the paper. Then you fold creases between that point and each corner. Then you bisect these four creases by making valley folds from the original point and lining up the corner creases. Strangely this makes a sort of chaotic base that is a bit like the traditional square base. From this you flatten the four mountain folds and make petal folds a bit like making a frog base. and then you have an origami crystal I think like the dark crystal but that is just what my mind does.

If you unfold all of these petal folds , flatten the paper and push the point of origin the whole piece can be inverted. By starting with the smallest petals and folding them internally the flower is formed - an abstract non symmetrical mutant flower but a flower all the same.

I am not sure why I used black paper for this but I did resist inverting the image to make it look strange so at least that is good.

Waterfall 2

2011-08-11T12:29:00.002+01:00

As I said in my last post I have remade the waterfall but less regularly.

I know that is not a great description but the photos should fill in the gaps.

Strangely the waterfall from the last post now reminds me more of a shambling Lovecraftian monster that moves through the weird angles in space and time. I think that may just be me.

The Wallet 3

2011-07-19T10:43:00.003+01:00

These two designs are a bit insane. They developed from the corner listed in the last post.

Images 1 & 2 : the ziggurat fish. This half made bouncy ziggurat has the impression of a more organic object thus the 'fish'. This is odd as it is a working model for a more complex ziggurat with a ramp or steps up one side.

Images 3 & 4 : waterfall. When I made the steps using the same corner fold I enjoyed its solid architectural feel. If you fill a page edge to edge with corned folds the pleating and splaying are conversely very organic. I may make a less regular version of this.

That about wraps it up. That wallet is now refilled with crisp unfolded paper and I will try to post more about what I am doing along the way. I have three other wallets but that is getting ridiculous.

The Wallet 2

2011-07-19T10:40:00.000+01:00

Image 1 : corner. This is an origami corner I use in things like my ziggurat, cowboy hat and the Eiffel Tower I made in Paris but found out had almost fold for fold been designed by someone else earlier.

Image 2 : umbrella investigation. I was looking at the construction and folding of an umbrella and am working towards a similar plan for a sheet of paper and this is one of the accidents I came across on the way.

Image 3 : intertwined snakes. That is a reaching description of this development from my new base fold which I have yet to figure out how to make into something less abstract.

Image 4 : centipede segment. I think I will do a class on how to fold this piece. It is a segment of the centipede I came up with a while ago. If I got 50 people to make one each and we link them together (that is part of the design). We could make the hundred legs I have been very slowly working towards on my own.

The Wallet 1

2011-07-19T09:45:00.004+01:00

I was thinking that I just haven't posted in a while and that might imply that I do not do origami very often. This sadly is not the case. I am posting here the contents of my origami wallet. A small plastic envelope ( kindly gifted to me by Rachel ) that contains about 100 pieces of memocube paper. I often fold something and then unfold it and flat-pack it back into this wallet. I went to find a fresh piece of paper the other day and realised there were none. So last night I emptied out the wallet, refolded the origami pieces in it and have photographed a few of them here. Due to the limited number of images I can include per post this may take a few.

Image 1 : parabola. I have worked out that not only can you make an approximate parabola by folding one edge of a sheet of paper to a central point but that this can be be used as a basis for approximating the intersection of two curved planes. That is as close as I will ever get to explaining that.

Image 2 : double inverted corner. This is similar to my ashtray design but with a second inversion of the 3 corner faces.

Image 3 : axolotl head. This is an old favorite. I made it and tried to make a body but have failed to do that well so made a series of animal heads on mounts. I just made this again to remind myself of how it is done.

Image 4 : Squid in construction. This is a partially finished squid. I cannot remember why i started this or why it isn't finished but my tube probably came into the station. I made a squid the other night for a friend, Gen. It is fun to show off.

1(a... (a leaf falls on loneliness)

2011-04-12T17:55:00.011+01:00

1(a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l

iness

by E. E. Cummings

This is a piece that I recently made and use as a bookmark. This is is good for the origami as it compresses the piece much more neatly into a flat leaf and because it is functional which makes me happy.
I like the fact that the edges of the paper are the edge of the leaf, this is surprisingly rare in models I have seen.
I also like the fact that the back still has the overall shape of a leaf but the silly amount of folding becomes like the complexity of veins in a leaf. If you hadn't noticed I am quite chuffed with this design.
The poem is one that my partner introduced to me before we started going out, it is nice to have a model to go with it.

Virtual Origami

2011-01-25T15:44:00.004Z

Sorry about the blogging splurge. Lots of old ideas to share but new stuff is happening.

I have been obsessing about virtual interpretations of origami for some time now. I have recently undertaken the mind bending project of making a 3d model of the hellraiser flower I wrote up in 2008. The inspiration is the idea that if models can be made of these objects then maybe someone can explain to me how to apply the geometry of movement to a 3d model so it can be animated. This would make the animations I have made much simpler to generate. I personally think the future of origami on the web is 3d models that you can get to fold in an animated way to get past the incomprehensibility of most advanced origami instructions.

So here is the hellraiser flower reinterpreted as a 3d object and posed to look like the images I posted of the real origami object. And I have also posted the sketchup model here which I can rotate in my browser but I am not sure how accessible this is.

Story Arc 4: Aerodynamic Bird

2011-01-24T11:43:00.003Z

This is really a story about the pace of origami design and thought.

Last year I held a demonstration where I showed a group of varying ages and abilities some of my designs through a step by step instructional course. As with all these things participating in the performance denies any objective understanding of how it went. Suffice to say I was left with a sense of inept fumbling on my part.

There were to moments which really stuck in my mind.
Firstly; the boy who got bored and made up a great flea design of his own while waiting for me to teach him how to do a scorpion was truly humbling.
Secondly; one of the other boys quite reasonably asked if the bird I was folding could fly. Now the more mature audience quickly poo pooed the idea that it should and we carried on as if the question had never happened. The kid was right. Why not. We make paper planes that look nothing like planes but they fly. That is their job! Oh, from the mouths of babes grrrr.

So six or so months later while playing with the new base I have been working on I made this bird. I Have to admit that the look is a bit chunky but when I made it from a 21x21 cm (squared up a4) sheet it was aerodynamically sound!!!

My sister and I tested it of the roof of my studio building. It flew! A bit wonky like any paper plane but it flew.

Story Arc 3:New fold

2011-01-24T10:37:00.006Z

So this wave on the edge is a bit boring and I quickly moved to experimenting with it, I had tried to do it on 2 and 4 corners of a piece of paper thus the bulls head and bowl designs in the earlier post.

I then moved on to making the wave pattern work symmetrically towards the center. This is hard to fully explain so the crease pattern here and the subsequent images are hopefully clearer. The practical upshot is a new base fold pattern for me to work from.

Story Arc 2: Fascinators

2010-12-28T11:31:00.004Z

The small wave at the edge of the paper in my last post was somewhat of a revelation to me. The concept of using the majority of the square of paper as a formal element to which a small articulate origami fascinator is folded in really appeals. I am not sure where this will go but here are a few examples so far.

Story arc

2010-10-07T23:02:00.005+01:00

So I have been thinking allot lately. Working too hard and sadly as a result making allot of progress. Sadly because it is an apparent fact that I come up with better ideas when I am under duress. I think it is why I like origami. It is a completely uninterested practice. Very few people I know even know other people who make it and when I am concentrating on other things I seem to relax when I consciously think about origami.

So I had an idea recently. I thought to make a wave on the edge of a triangle of paper. It is pretty sad as an idea and I don't even think I like the result but it was the start of a few good lines of enquiry that I like the results of. I think the wave as an idea is the result of making Robert Lang's Nautilus ages ago but it really just came to me.

I worked on it and the fold pattern turned out to be quite versatile.

The story arc in the title refers to the fact I came up with this over a month ago and I have generated two new full designs and one whole new school of origami for me from this starting point. I hope to write these up in imminent blogs and through the time travelling power of links interconnect the four blogs I plan to write ( including this one ) into clear lines of development.

So these images are of the wave fold pattern and the wave as well as the bulls head (also bad) and the bowl (still not good).

I have also tried to add a couple of gadgets to the blog. I do not know if this is a good idea or not but I am trying to be as modern as I can be.

Tintin Rocket Workshop

2010-08-27T11:05:00.006+01:00

For my sins I have agreed to do a workshop today between 4 and 6pm at the Woodmill Depot in Bermondsey.

I said to the organisers that I would go through a series of models that I had designed myself teaching people how to make them and explaining the processes that are behind the designs. This is much scarier than it sounds. I have developed a series of step by step models (each step as a separate piece of paper). I have the butterfly, tintin rocket, scorpion, and squid ready with a more complicated plan for presenting the hellraiser flower. This is all to say that I have been thinking about this all too much. I am thinking I will present a basic extrapolation petal folds as a very versatile element in design in my own development.

I have included the tintin rocket photos here. I realised I have never documented it. It is I think the first model of my own design. It is at least 15 years old and I find it very strange to even conceive of what my thought processes were when I made it first.

What I think scares me is how simple it seems and that no one will see anything exciting in it. I am sure that if I tried to present all my work in 2 hrs I would confuse and annoy but it is strange all these models are at least 5 years old and there are so many good models in the world. My current pieces are so abstract that naming them would almost be lying. Too much time making origami I think. And of course I got distracted and have discoverd a new fold and started making claws or eagles or goat heads from it. Grrr always everything at once.

Anyway I hope you enjoy the rocket it is still nostalgic to me.

Firstfold Mushroom

2010-08-09T23:37:00.006+01:00

So I gave in and looked up mushroom designs online. It was gooooood. I found this set of images by firstfold and was genuinely hitting my head with the keyboard.

I had come across stuff like it when making the chess set. It is basically a piece of paper consertinad 16 times then you make a profile of half of the shape you want and then you expand the outer edge of the shape around and back onto itself. Honestly that actually makes sense to me.

Anyway I loved the fact that I made a turtle while trying to make a mushroom and firstfold made a mushroom while trying to make an umbrella.

I simply added a ruffle to make it a little more atomic and presto. Annoyingly I thought the stem should be taller so I had to make a second one.

I know an origami mushroom cloud is loaded. I think I first started formulating this idea with Thomas Hirschorn's mushrooms in Drift Topography that I had the job of stopping from self destructing while it was on at the Tate. I remember all the morning after style films and TV series when I was a kid and liked how playful his approach to the subject was. I think that shape is a modern titan.

You can see from the photos there were 2 and they are both from 10cm square memo cube paper. A bit silly really but somehow it seemed right if I could do it all at such an actual mushroom scale.

Mushroom

2010-08-03T11:23:00.003+01:00

So I did photograph the mushroom this morning. It is a little bit of a long shot, more of an architectural shape that I have given a name to.

The basic idea was that the same folds that I use for stairs, the cowboy hat and the ziggurat can be turned inside out to create a sort of darting in the paper. When repeated this gives a bump in the middle of the sheet. I used a simple tuck underneath to stop it undoing itself.

For the mushroom head I just did a second set of darts a bit further from the middle and on the diagonal. I have to admit the rolled paper as the base is kind of funny. I like the idea of a non folded origami object. This again is a multi piece model which am in two minds about but it hasn't stopped me posting it.

Slow Turtle

2010-08-03T00:16:00.003+01:00

Sorry Nick, thank you for looking. I just get sidetracked and forget that people might actually look at what I post.

Anyway I was trawling the origami photography archive I put together a while ago. I was reminded of one of my favourite older designs. Again the paper is grid based, I think I like the malleability of grid systems in origami it can quickly lead to some really strange shapes. I remember enjoying the bubble shape I made in the middle of the paper which i thought might make a good mushroom head but the excess turned out more like legs and presto, a turtle. A kind of slow and dopey looking one at that.

I have made another dome thing in the middle of a piece of paper which looks a bit like a mushroom and I will hopefully have worked into a photographable object soon.

Ashtray

2010-07-28T22:19:00.003+01:00

I was told that someone actually read my blog today. This made me happy and actually remember that some of the point of writing this blog was to archive what I had done for myself as much as anyone else, so...

The origami ash tray is actually quite simple to make but much like the origami chess set it has a somewhat chindogu based design.

Hellraiser Flower 4: Zombies Ate My Flower

2010-06-13T10:11:00.003+01:00

Hello Strangers

It has been pointed out that I have been a bit crap about updating lately but I am trying again now so....

Anyway I have been reading an origami book called Project Origami by Thomas Hull. It is the geekiest book ever and it applies complex mathematics and origami through a series of projects. It has been very interesting for me but I cannot say there is much that is even remotely interesting or comprehensible to others in it. I did however learn that each time you divide a square in origami it becomes more accurate. That is if you fold a sheet in half and then into quarters and then into eighths the eighths will be more accurate than the half you divided the page by to begin with.

Anyway with this principal in mind I revisited an old design and found that with the same size piece of paper I could fit 4 of my hellraiser flowers onto a single sheet. I have also worked out to interlock these flowers into a cube similar to the old design but will take a bit of time actually making these.

Platonic Solids

2009-10-11T09:19:00.004+01:00

So after looking into Paul's folds and proving that he was indeed using origami to fold a 60' angle(see attached picture). I began making shapes.

These shapes are known as platonic solids. The water bomb is the cube and the other three shapes are all based on the equilateral triangles that Paul showed me. I liked the idea of leaving one face open so you can see the interior as well as the exterior. All of these models were made from one piece of paper which I also like in a weird flat surface to solid regular shape kind of way.

There is of course the Dodecahedron missing from this group but I haven't even figured out how to make a pentagon yet let alone a 12 sided figure with pentagons. Always something to work on though.

Apollo inverse

2009-10-01T00:01:00.002+01:00

I just wanted to do one more lander picture, sorry. I detailed new landing pads and all sorts of stuff but really I just wanted to do a grainy moon landing special effect

I met Paul

2009-09-30T23:52:00.004+01:00

I had a genuinely surprising moment the other day when this guy sat next to me on the tube and said " So... I'm not the only one." and was folding a 20 pointed star.

He left a completed one on the seat when we left and gave me a piece of the puzzle to look at myself. I am still grappling with the equilateral triangle that it all involves. I have since found a way to make a tetrahedron( 4 equilateral triangles forming a regular geometric 3d object)out of 3 pieces of paper and a geodesic shape currently a rock or lump but it may grow into a icosahedron (a 20 sided object or D20 if you play role playing games).

Apollo 11

2009-09-22T22:50:00.005+01:00

So.... having figured out the legs and dome then I had to divide my sheet into 7 parts (see attached diagram) and then do 4 legs, one for each corner. And there was Apollo 11 or at least what I had wanted to achieve.

The development of Apollo

2009-09-22T17:16:00.002+01:00

So it took far too much fidgeting but I came up with a plan. It was funny working on just one leg of the lander as I could see what I was working towards but it was just strange for anyone else to see I'm sure.

The final solution was to replace the tucked away method for hiding the excess paper in the original fold with a petal fold exterior to the dome shape.

Then I tucked away most of the petal fold to the interior of the dome.

I then folded the petal sides to the middle to create a long thin leg for my craft.

To finish I pinched the leg out in the middle and added a landing foot.

The birth of Apollo 11

2009-09-22T16:52:00.002+01:00

Two strange things have converged in recent months: the anniversary of the moon landings and a new fold (to me).

The photos I have here are the shapes I came across fidgeting one day. The indented equilateral triangle is a very strange fold as it makes an easy shift from a flat surface through two 45' bevels to 3 perpendicular sides each at 45' to each other. This quite simple set of folds is an appealing shape in itself.

When you combine 4 of these around a square you end up with an octagonal based dome. I loved the simple architectural properties of this shape and almost instantly likened it to the top of the Apollo 11 Moon-lander. It has unfortunately taken me 4 months to figure out how to make the rest of the craft....

more stairs

2009-06-07T22:38:00.002+01:00

So in looking at the way in which a staircase is made in real life I have attempted to articulate it in graphic form.

The real problem is that paper is a much more complex and actually not hard geometry but something much more subtle.

The real tactility of the origami object is really its strength. Sorry, I am just finding it strange to have finally have got to the stage where 3d imaging is possible with my level of modelling an it really just makes me look more at the real origami object.

Structure 2

2009-06-04T01:15:00.004+01:00

So I have been fiddling with the four corners combined and ended up with something fun but a bit rediculous.

It does however have some strange structural properties, the larger one that is.

Structure

2009-06-04T00:24:00.004+01:00

Having extolled the virtues of simplicity of form I turn around and complicate an idea. This happened in two ways:

The first being modelling. I have been working with a 3D modelling programme called Sketchup for a sculptural project. I had a go looking at how the simple folds in the previous architecture posts could be modelled.

And combined....

And I have now made all of these as actual objects. The final image here is the beginning of a much more complex piece...

Architecture 2 ....

2009-05-12T00:03:00.003+01:00

So these structures can become more complex as you add more of these corners. The nice thing is that by using 4 corners you can make a square platform. You can also use sets of corners to cascade up and make a set of steps.

Now here is where thinking about a show came in. I like to show off completed things. I have a Ziggeurat and a Cowboy hat that take this even a step further but the clean formal initial pieces in the last post and this one seem to be stronger as abstract compositions and more communicative about the whole process.

So for the show I want to line a corridore like space with these pieces hung on the wall in doubles left being a top view, right being a bottom and ending with a staircase on the floor with its underside hanging from the ceiling. All made from cheap 2m square white paper. I like memocube paper I really like big memocube paper.

Architecture

2009-05-11T23:52:00.005+01:00

So I had a vague conversation about another show the other day and it got me thinking about structure. I have been obsessing over a sculpture for the last wee while. (some explanation of my lack of posting but not an excuse) One of the things I really enjoy about origami is the simple ideas.

I came up with a fold a few years back which made a right angled corner in the middle of a sheet of paper. Of course I saw the Enigma Bowl by David Mitchell and realised once again that one very rarely discovers anything new.

However the nice thing about the fold involved is that it makes lovely structures. So I have posted a series of experiments here creating simple structures from the idea then becoming more complex.

Crabby

2009-04-07T22:28:00.004+01:00

I have been away. that is my excuse and I am sticking with it.

While away I saw beautiful paper in Japan and have come up with a crab. It is strange that I liked the stylisation of this piece given the amount of super folding and modular pieces that can make things of such accuracy but I still like a good old fashioned styalised crab.

Oh well

Happy Birthday Dogboy

2009-02-04T00:41:00.002Z

Here is a dog head I have made up recently That I dedicate to the original dog boy.

Happy Birthday

Centipede

2008-12-28T11:21:00.002Z

Here is a centipede I have been working on. The head is constantly undergoing redesign so I haven't concentrated on it. The segments are quite easy, just petal folds and a 9 square grid. then I link them together.

The truth is that my centipede only has 56 legs at the moment but apparently very few centipedes have 100 legs and no millipedes have 1,000,000 legs.

mounted animal heads

2008-12-21T23:16:00.003Z

I have to say I feel a bit bad about this post.

So I have had this thing with making origami heads. The bat, the manbat and the bat mask are a result of this.

So while looking at Robert Langs Nautilus and just playing with a part along the way I came to the dog head here. I liked it and am playing with body ideas and am getting somewhere but not fast.

It made me think of having done this before. I remember working on a body for an axolotl based on the head pictured here. The body was passable at best.

So I thought what could I do with these heads. I could do masks but it seemes incomplete to me so I came up with the head rack. It is slightly adjusted for each of the heads here but it is just a shield with a bunch of overlaps in the middle that the neck of your head can fit into.

So here they are.

The axolotl, the dog, the bat and Rachels cobra which I like very much. Rachel showed it to me at the pub and I stole it to copy and mount on an origami wall.

Scissors 3... something about revenge of the ...

2008-12-17T15:24:00.004Z

Here is my how to as jpegs.

Is this makable by anyone else?

Scissors 2

2008-12-17T14:57:00.003Z

I decided to post a how to for the scissors and as usual it all went wrong.

First I found the wiki how to origami scissors page which made me think it would be cool to post my design.

Then I sat down to make instructions and realized again how hard that is.

Then I looked further and found the scissors posted here which are better than mine.

So now I have a pdf and 4 pictures on how to make an inferior pair of scissors. I do like that mine are way too complicated but that is all I have left.

And I cant publish a pdf on this blog!

Skips

2008-12-02T12:02:00.003Z

Last night I had a little accident. I knocked over a skip. Admittedly it was a small skip full of paper and it got me thinking. So I made an origami skip to match and then changed the skip to be more like the skip I knocked over so I guess I made 2 origami skips.

Like everything the skip has a story....

A while ago while I was installing Martin Kippenbergers Heavy Burschi I had this idea for an exhibition where I hired a skip and put it in the middle of a gallery. Artists are invited to deposit a work they made that they would like destroyed. The show would run for a set period of time and at the end of the show the skip would be taken away and the works destroyed. I still like this idea and have some ideas for where I would like to have the show even.

So the other day a friend, Ellie, handed me the small plastic skip / paper and pen holder while we were charity shopping. I think the general response to it is that it is U.G.L.Y. but I love it. So it is my memocube holder at home now. Thus the skip accident image.

It is strange how origami and art interrelate at least in my mind.

Hellraiser flower cube

2008-11-25T08:58:00.004Z

So the interlocking method on the flowers continues through till you make 2 sets of 3 and then you combine them all. I have to say here that a chill went up my spine when I finished it for the first time because I was suddenly reminder of Clive Barkers Hellraiser films. All of them were centred around a puzzle box that was extremely complex but if solved opened a gatway to hell. A bit over the top I know but I do remember thinking it at the time. And now it is a good excuse for cheap special effects.

Interlocking flowers

2008-11-25T08:50:00.003Z

So.. thinking about the modular origami thing again. I came up with what I describe as a flower a few years back. It isn't really a flower of any kind that I can think of but it is abstract and has symetry. I then discovered modular origami and began to reassess the possibility of old abstract designs. while doing so I came across the interlinking method which I have photographed here.

Bouncy Ziggurat

2008-11-10T00:17:00.005Z

Following the discovery of the folds that make the cowboy hats dome section I realised you could repeat the same principle to make more complex structures. The ziggurat is actually made up of a diagonal grid with the corners tucking into each other under the base. After making this I saw an Eiffel Tower diagram which is really nice and uses the same basic idea.

Cowboy Hat

2008-10-30T08:40:00.005Z

So about 12 years ago I made the mistake of telling a friend, Liam that I could make just about anything in origami. In my defence I had just finished making all the models in a book I had but there is no excuse for such things. So he quite fairly asked for a cowboy hat. I was floored. About 6 years later I finally got it. There is an image of it in the shop window on top of the black knight earlier this month.

I was told that the Japanese folders just publish their crease diagrams and that this was quite annoying because it was almost impossible to figure out the folds from it. I am thinking about doing a how to series on this design but have yet to do so but I have done a crease diagram and it is quite pretty, sorry.

Chess Pieces

2008-10-24T12:00:00.002+01:00

Here are the individual pieces. I had trouble with ataching all the images to one post.

Chess Set

2008-10-24T09:11:00.005+01:00

So I have this image of an origami chess set made from one piece of paper. This is a bit of a lie but it is also strangely true.

I guess I should start with credits. I came up with the consetina design after looking at a set of drawings from students at the Dessau school. The Dessau art school was a major part of the Bauhaus movement in Germany pre WW2. I was actually involved in hanging the Albers and Maholi-Nagi show at the Tate and started to see a strong origami element in the work. Especially the work of Konrad Puschell.

Anyway, while looking through some books I flipped past a page that looked a bit like my first picture ( I am still looking for the picture I am talking about, but no luck yet). I am not sure if the drawing was of an origami model or not but I made it out of a single sheet of uncut paper later that day.

Then a few weeks later on a work trip in Germany I was stuck in a hotel bored and folding and I came up with the idea of making a chess set by changing around the consetina object to make each of the pieces. This was made easier by the use of a digital camera to capture an image of each piece without me having to remake each piece.

Out of lazyness I then just photoshopped the pieces together using the negative images of the pieces to represent the opposing colour. Thus the chess set out of one piece of paper (and many photographs of it collaged together).

I have actually changed the designs a bit since then but I have included a photoshopped image very similar to my original idea here. I actually prefer the collaged set to the real thing which took me a year os so to get around to making.

Photographs

2008-10-18T08:08:00.003+01:00

Here are a few photos of the front window as it was at 12.30 yesterday. Yes colour photographs. I promise it wont happen again. The object under the stairs was an Odradek not that anyone could recognise it and the 2 part black and white thing is a knight from my chess set design with a stetson hat on.

The window display has been taken down now.

Showy

2008-10-16T21:51:00.007+01:00

Well the opening happened last night and it was fun. Thank you Rachael, Louise and Rosemary for having me. Thank you for the tunes Jaime, and thanks to those who came along, and thank you to Dave and Ellie for the help too. So much thanks.

So... here's what I learned yesterday. I know very little and I need to read, listen and think more.

These are great things to learn. I failed in my initial promise to make the whole thing an accessible paper folding foray and got nervous and show-offy and put a bunch of pieces that I am actually quite happy with on display. I plan more butterflies I promise.

I sidelined my butterfly to show off and in a way I had to do it. I was nervous and excited and self conscious. While at the opening Larry showed me an origami butterfly (need more info to put link in here) which frankly did more with less and became a bear... so cool. It also taught me that you can make a flapping version of my butterfly by folding back its wings and pressing on its spine.

My shambling bat upside down looks like scooby doo and I am looking into ways to make the butterfly more a part of the shop and show.

Yes Simon I will put in photographs of the show soon.

Show

2008-10-09T07:48:00.006+01:00

I have a show at Prick Your Finger opening next Wednesday. I have a staircase and an Odradek to show as well as lots of other things. I am excited and a bit nervous.

Oh and I also am demonstrating some work at the Origin craft fair at Somerset House on Sunday from 2 till 4.

Dragon

2008-09-25T07:37:00.002+01:00

Here is a dragon. It is kind of silly to have made an origami dragon in the whole japanese history of dragons kind of way. But it was fun at the time.

Anyway it is actually made from 2 pieces of paper interlocked in the neck and head. It began as a variation of a Brontosaurus I saw once.

Transformers Help

2008-09-21T00:40:00.005+01:00

A while ago I came up with a Deceptacon logo in origami form. Not satified with this I looked to the internet for an Autobot head so I could have one piece of paper which changed from a good robot head logo to an evil robot head logo, and back again etc. I could not find one so I had a few attempts at making my own. These are my best, most current attempts at them both. If anyone can find other preferrably better versions please send me a link.

Fun Transformers facts:

Leonard Nemoy and Orsen Wells were voice over parts in the 1986 animated transformers film.

The deceptacon leader Megatron used to come in a box with his slogan on it "Peace through tyranny." That is the best evil slogan ever.

Pegasus

2008-09-11T23:17:00.008+01:00

This is actually similar in design to the elephant witha few different details near the end.

I like the idea of a Mobil pegasus but it is still a way from that.

Elephant

2008-09-08T23:29:00.002+01:00

I came up with this elephant after doing a set of dinosaurs from a Muji origami dinosaur set. I especially liked the Triceratops.

Scissors

2008-09-07T23:00:00.004+01:00

I made a pair of scissors. One piece of paper. No cutting the paper either.

I am having a show of origami stuff soon at Prick Your Finger. I am very pleased but not sure of exactly what to show.

Bob's Helicopter

2008-08-28T22:40:00.006+01:00

Now I have to admit this is a bit overcomplicated but I think I have a good working version of a Helicopter that Bob asked for drunkenly a while ago.

Yes I think it looks a bit like a rabbit too. I will work on other versions but it may be inevitable.

Tessellation Fish

2008-08-21T08:49:00.000+01:00

So on the tessellation theme here is a fish made basically from a grid with the odd diagonal fold to tuck things back.

It is rotationally symmetrical.

Feeling Better

2008-08-21T08:40:00.000+01:00

I was showing some of the origami I had to some friends and they liked this one. It is tessellation based origami and from 1 piece of paper. I have always been nervous of trying to show abstract origami as it does most peoples heads in.

Exploding ball and a lack of originality

2008-08-18T09:43:00.001+01:00

So.... a few years back I came across a book with modular origami (multi part origami pieces). The piece I am thinking of has 12 pieces (the first lamp design here is the pattern I saw). So I went and played with the idea and came up with the two pieces pictured here. I then worked out that you can inverse the individual pieces of one shape to get a second shape. Now I was quite pleased with myself. The larger form explodes when you hit it and is an excellent gift for stress relief.

None of this is original however. Looking at the guardian the other day I saw an image of a skeletal octahedron. Not only that but every concievable variation of this is out there. This has popped my bubble. I will continue but am deeply humbled by the internet itself and the realisation that it is unlikely anything I have done has not been done better before.

Bat

2008-08-15T12:02:00.000+01:00

Carrying on with the bat theme I first made the bat mask then interlocked it with other pieces to make the manbat and finally have made a bat out of one piece of paper.

Bat Mask

2008-08-15T11:42:00.000+01:00

So the manbat thing began as a bat mask.

The paper was divided into nine squares and then petal folded in various ways to achieve this bat mask. (the black mask is just the negative image of the white one)

There are two things I like about the bat mask. The button nose and if you wore it you would be blind (I do not cut my origami).

Manbat

2008-08-14T08:09:00.000+01:00

Just so you know. I have a backlog of stuff I am trying to sort out for display meaning I am archiving my work from the last few years. There are quite allot of pieces to put up and if people want further explanations / instructions please ask.

So... manbat. Not even close to anatomically correct for a bat. This piece is made in 4 parts interlocking with petalfolds (something I will illustrate soon I promise).

Scorpion

2008-08-13T13:23:00.000+01:00

Here is a Scorpion based on a Lily base.

Squid 2 the revenge of squid (Cthulhu)

2008-08-13T08:43:00.000+01:00

This is what happens when you play with paper while reading Lovecraft.

Actually made out of 3 interlinked pieces of paper.

Squid

2008-08-12T21:32:00.000+01:00

Here is a more complicated series on how to make a squid albeit with only 3 tentacles.

How to: Origami squid

Butterfly

2008-08-12T16:36:00.001+01:00

Here is a butterfly I am working on illustrating.

How to: Origami butterfly

Origami

2008-08-12T16:00:00.000+01:00

Hello

This blog is about origami. Mostly just the stuff I make. I hope you enjoy it.

If you like my designs feel free to make them (or email me for instructions). If you intend to publish them contact me first and we can sort something out.

Disclaimer: I will be posting my designs but if I have accidentally made something somebody has already made I will endeavour to change my blog accordingly.