Category: Origami

Flight of the Concorde
May 13, 2015

Here’s one more new model for the Air and Space theme: a Supersonic Transport. Perhaps the Concorde’s most famous flight was the one in 1985 that carried drummer and vocalist Phil Collins across the ocean to open the Live Aid concert in Wembley Stadium in London and close it RFK Stadium in North America sitting in with a (temporarily) reunited Led Zeppelin.

The annual OUSA convention is coming up soon, and I’ve committed to teaching a bunch of these new models. This is to help motivate me to do some diagramming; I’d like to get the bulk of my new book done this summer. So far I’ve been concentrating on the simpler models. I’ve done two in the last two days. The next two are low-intermediate, then two solid intermediate, and a high intermediate and a complex one.

More models with the air and space theme. Here’s a bunch of studies for a passenger jet.

I got a note from my publisher today saying that the my book, Origami Animal Sculpture, has reached its first year sales target after only 6 months. Thanks to everyone who’s bought the book!

I’ve been experimenting more with origami spacecraft in preparation for book two. I now have a SpaceX Dragon. Of all the hundreds of paper dragons out there, I’m pretty sure this is the only one of these. Also an Apollo CSM. In real life the two vessels have the same diameter. These models will too, if folded out of the same size paper, but I used 10” for one and 8.5” for the other.

I made a few domes as well to have some simpler models in the front of the book and introduce the folding techniques. I call these the Radar Dome and the Moon Base Dome. The chapter will also include an Observatory and a Radiotelescope.

The thing about simplicity in art (or anything else I suppose) is that it’s actually harder than complexity. My natural tendency as a folder is toward the complex. It’s effortless in a way to keep on going, adding more detail, until you have what you want. But I’ve learned a lot from doing my first book, and I want to have enough simple to intermediate models to open it up to a wider appeal. To get to simple, you have to remove and remove until you get to what’s truly essential. Sometimes this involves jettisoning things you think are really important only to find they don’t matter at all.

Today I spent my time experimenting with simple rocket designs. The major insight was to make avoid the puffing-out phase, that is to make an X rather than and O when seen from above. It’s funny cuz I was corresponding with a colleague, explaining my goals for the new book, when a new design approach hit me mid-sentance. Came up with two or three good models that can be folded in 10 minutes or less. Also past the halfway point in model count, so that means to me critical mass.

I talked to my publisher this week about doing a second origami book, to follow up Origami Animal Sculpture. I gave them a few concepts and the one they like the best is Origami from Sky and Space. This would include models like my Rocketship, U.F.O., Hot Air Balloon, Zeppelin, and Radio Satellite. Now I need to come up with about a half a book’s worth of models to round it out and give them a formal pitch. So I’ve begun brainstorming and folding.

I think I have a very good list. More models than I need actually, so I can choose the ones that come out the best. I’m particularly keen on coming up with a few simple to low intermediate models for the first section of the book, although I must admit, so far my designs have been leaning toward the complex. I’m going have a chapter of airplanes, and I went for the most challenging one first. I folded a Biplane that I think turned out pretty nicely. The form can be adapted into several other aircraft. By coincidence it uses the same base as the Radio Satellite.

Well my busy spell at work has ended a bit sooner than expected, so I have some time now to get caught up on a bunch of long-standing projects. First off, I’ve been thinking about a second origami book, and tossing around ideas for a topic or theme. One of the more promising ones is to expend my repertoire of Origami from Space models with a constellation of related models. The other night I came up with a concept for one. I’m not sure whether to call it Space Probe or Radio Satellite, but over the last few days I folded several versions, experimenting and refining it.

Here’s two of the best so far. One version uses a 12×12 grid and the other 16×16. This model is a but unusual for me in the that it starts with a grid and uses some box-pleating, but it’s appropriate to the subject. The base is similar to my War Elephant, in that it embeds a Hydrangea tessellation in the middle of the paper and proceeds from there. Some day soon I hope to take some pictures on a black background with some salt sprinkled on it to simulate outer space. Meanwhile I also have an idea to fold a Sputnik.

Last night I went to see the play Animals Out of Paper, to which I contributed a few origami models, and many more of my designs were folded by others for use in the production. The play was really excellent on a number of levels. Animals Out of Paper was written by Rajiv Joseph and this production was directed by Merri Milwe and starred David Beck, Nairoby Otero, and Maneesh Sasikumar. Talo Kawasaki was the origami consultant.

This production was in a funky church on the Upper West Side. Off-Broadway theatre is a bit like bar bands for actors. You have some incredibly talented people working on a very low budget, doing great work without the accompanying fame. In this case the play had only three characters, which means that the writing and the acting have to be very good cuz there’s very little else. The story centers on the relationship between an origami master, her protégé, and her protégé’s math teacher who also happens to be her suitor. The actors really brought there characters to life with energy and charisma. By the end, you really care about them and their situation, which is more than you can for the typical modern movie.

Along the way there’s drama and humor, and a good amount of subtext and symbolism without getting cheesy, and a good deal of exploration of the creative process, particularly with respect to the question of loss and loneliness. Origami is the vehicle for all this, so there’s also a good deal of origami culture, actual technical knowledge, and even some in-jokes. The playwright is not (as far as I know) an origami guy but obviously cares a lot and spent some time at origami conventions and talking to folders, and he really got that stuff right. I have a friend who works at NASA and I was thinking this is how Steve must feel when he watches Star Trek. I mean, it sounds like the actors understand how a spaceship actually works.

Animals Out of Paper is an excellent play, very well written, and this production was brought to life with excellent actors, direction and origami. Unfortunately last night was the end to the run, so you’ll have to wait for another revival to see it.

The good folks over at Origami Blog have done a review of book Origami Animal Sculpture. They seem to like it a lot. Party on Garth!

http://origamiblog.com/book-review-origami-animal-sculpture/2015/02/04

Well it’s that time of the year again. Time to make some updates to my web site before spring comes. I started off my updating my origami page with the new models I created in 2014. There’s five, including the Dual Cube with Color Change, so that’s a pretty good year.