Today I taught an Origami Special Session at the museum. I actually taught two, a morning session and an afternoon one. The subject was animals, and it was all new diagrams from my book-in-progress that needed test folding. The list included my Moose, U.F.O., Inchworm, Fox, Walrus, Elephant Seal, and Frog. In the morning it was supposed to be intermediate models and in the afternoon complex, but I let everyone fold whatever they wanted. In the morning class there was a very sweet and bright girl named Elliot, about eight or nine years old, who went straight for the Dragon (100 steps!) and did a great job.
The others in my morning class were at a more intermediate level, and were challenged to fold the Fox and Walrus. They didn’t always read the diagrams and didn’t know (for example) what a Stretched Bird Base is. Still, I want the book to appeal to folders at this level (there are a lot more of them), and hopefully help bring them up to a higher level of folding. After all I learned to fold by working my way thru books. So I’m looking to see where I might need to make things clearer, or redraw a single step as several steps. I’m also thinking of adding a section at the end of the book for explaining some of the more complex combo folds that recur in my models. Things like slide-squash, sink-squash, and double reverse folds. Maybe even a quick tour of the classic bases. I suppose I could also do a bit on 30 degree geometry, and a section on sculpting and finishing a model. Or I could work these in to the intros to the various chapters.
At lunchtime a went for a walk around the neighborhood and thru Central Park. It was the first really nice day we had in a while, so the park was crowded. The museum too. The whole city had an atmosphere of everyone coming out to enjoy the springtime.
After lunch was the complex section, and again I let anyone fold anything. It was much fuller and half the class were kids. Elliot returned, and several boys turned up. One of them folded the Dragon in less then an hour, and out of ten inch paper, with all the claws. This group folded the Moose, Frog and other complex models quite handily, which made me feel better about the level of the models. I brought along a model of my Armadillo, even though the diagrams aren’t complete. They were all so admiring of it that I ended up teaching it to the group in the last part of the session. It was a big hit. All in all a great teaching session and I got lots of good feedback on my new models and diagrams.
Oh, and only an hour or so after my last post complaining about my slow progress dealing with my publisher, I heard back from him and cleared up more than half of the outstanding issues with the contract.