Category: Origami

Origami Giant Squid

I came up with another new model this weekend to round out the cephalopod chapter in my book: a giant squid.

In other news I bought a song book of 60’s music on ukulele for Michelle not to long ago. She’s been learning a bunch of Beatles songs out of it, and I’ve been playing along with her on piano and guitar from time to time. She’s been asking to watch A Concert for George since I told her Paul does a version of Something on the uke, so yesterday we sat down and watched it.

On the downside, my music project with Erik had kinda cooled. I’ve been working up some new songs, but we haven’t had the time to get together and jam for a while. I want to get some gigs lined up for the fall, but I guess that’ll have to wait until I’m done the deliverables for my book. Ah well.

Origami Cuttlefish

I’m in the home stretch on my book. I folded a whole bunch of new models this weekend to try and round of the list of photos. In particular I’ve been getting sets of models that go together well for the group shots. I also have a few new designs to complete. One of them is for a Cuttlefish, the enigmatic cephalopod famous for its ability to change the color and pattern of its skin. This has been on my list for a long time. When we were in Florida last month I saw some cuttlefish up close in a tank in one of the aquariums we visited, and I feel like I got a really good sense of what this creature is about. I’d been thinking about how to fold a cuttlefish for a long time, so when the time came the design came together quickly, and I’m really happy with how it turned out. Properly C’htulluesque. It’s a nice intermediate model. Nothing too complex in the folding sequence or diagrams. I folded a few out of different color papers. This one out of an 8” square of Wyndstone. He’s resting, just being monochromatic. I need to find some crazy paper that will change colors once folded!

Origami Untamed Photo Shoot

Been busy with work and with back to school. Lizzy is taking double math this year, including early morning algebra – 7:30 A.M.! But most of all I’ve been busy finishing off my origami book deliverables for my publisher.

One of the big things to do was take all the pictures. I had been working on learning my new camera, but it’s a pretty steep learning curve. I know the basics of how to operate a camera and set up a the lighting for a scene, but I learned all that back in the days of real film, and my skills are a bit rusty. My friend Bob is a photography buff and I asked him for some guidance, and one thing led to another, and now he’s doing the photography for my book. And it’s coming out great! He’s got some really high-end lenses, and a studio with some pretty advanced lighting. But most of all, he’s got a good eye and knows how to use the stuff. Stuff I’d have to work out and look up, he’s just zip, bam, click! Bob’s’s using multiple remote triggered flashes, which gives a really intense light and lets him use a very short exposure and still get very sharp, detailed image. Great for bringing out the texture of the paper. I’ve always used continuous lighting and a tripod, and mostly shoot in macro mode, but Bob uses a deep zoom and steps way back, and just holds the camera.

We did two sessions, a test a couple weeks ago and a long session last weekend. We have most of the models covered, except a few group shots and the last few models that I’m still folding. It struck me that it was very similar to a recording studio situation in music. It’s great to have someone focused on capturing the best possible image (or sound) to leave me to worry about the models (or music). In the recording studio, it’s about the mic placement. In photography, it’s all about the lighting. The whole thing is very controlled – even fabricated – to make the image look even better than the real thing.

Bob was a great collaborator too, more analogous to a producer than a desk engineer. We explored lots of ideas for how to best present the models. Bob’s great at listening to my concepts and working to achieve them, and also bringing in creative ideas of his own. For each subject, it was a fresh setup: what kind of background, how to light it, what kind of angle to use. I already had some ideas about what would work for a particular subject. For example, for big subject like a moose or elephant, shoot down low so the animal looks big. For something small like a frog or butterfly, shoot downward so the model appears actual size. Bob just took the whole thing to the next level. He brought in things like rocks and driftwood to set the models on, and it made for some really great combinations of textures.

Here’s a sample:

OUSA 2012

This week it’s been really hot, in the upper 90’s. Yesterday we had a barbecue with family and friends, which was great fun, but by the end I was pretty beat from the heat. Today I’m sitting in the A.C., hoping the temperature will get below 90 before it gets dark, so I can at least go out and skate. Any kind of outdoor work is right out.

Last weekend was the Origami USA convention. This year was an especially good time. I had six new models in my exhibit this year, and feel like my work is getting to a level where it’s among the best out there. I finally perfected my Five Banded Armadillo and my American Turkey, and folded one of each out of a 19” square of Marble Wyndstone paper, which now available in States again. They came out awesome. The only problem with the Turkey is that it’s a color-change model and Wyndstone is the same on both sides. So I’m going to fold another, and am thinking of ways do the color either by painting the paper on one side or laminating a layer of tissue.

I also folded a Fox from a 12” sheet of scrapbook paper, which worked pretty nicely. Also I had three new tessellations: a Penrose Tessellation, a Penflower Tessellation, and a Pent-Pent Fractal. The Pent-Pent is not a true tessellation because it won’t tile the plane without distortion. It would however, tile a quasi-spherical surface and make an interesting 60-sided polyhedron composed of all pentagons. Ah well, put that in the future file. I rounded out the exhibit with some of my best models from previous years. Got a lot of good comments, and lots of people asking me to teach my models.

I taught two classes, one of intermediate animals and one of complex animals. Each was five recently diagrammed models for the book that I wanted people to test fold. It went quite well. The models are very foldable and I got great feedback as far as minor typos and drawing mistakes, and a couple fold sequences that need clarification.

I bought a lot of new origami paper this year, because I’m looking to re-fold every model for my book to take photographs. This year the Source was selling Wyndstone in 50 x 70 cm sheets so I bought a lot of that in different colors, plus a few large sheets of semi-sparkly paper, one of which will be used to fold my Zeppelin. I’ve decided I’m thru with thin paper. It totally doesn’t work with my design style. I tried to fold my Armadillo of some Origamido-style paper, and it wouldn’t hold together.

Of course seeing people is the most fun part of the convention. Many of my usual friends were there. Lots of good eating out and hanging out folding and talking. John M. is in the middle of several new books including one of Stars, one of simple dinosaurs, and one of (intermediate to complex) mammals, and one of horses. Each set of models is excellent and fascinating in its own way. The dinosaurs in particular show a high level of refinement, well beyond your typical beginner fare.

There seems to be a lot of interest in publishing this year. I met my publisher Jon face to face after months of exchanging emails. He seems like a very nice guy, and I have a good feeling about doing the book with him, which is important. He gets origami as an art form, and knows a lot more about books and book publishing than I do. On Monday I was invited to participate on a panel about publishing. Other panelist included John Montroll, Robert Lang, and Yamaguchi, so I was flattered to be in such esteemed company. It was an interesting panel too.

So all in all a great convention. You can see my photo gallery of the exhibit here.

Checking In

It’s been a busy couple o’ weeks. First off, I’ve been listening to the new Rush album, Clockwork Angels, for pretty much every day the last two weeks. It definitely rewards repeated listenings like only great music can. I’m gonna say I think its their best album yet!

Second, last week Lizzy preformed in a production of “NYXSW” with her performing arts group Young At Arts. NYXSW expands to New York by Southwest, and the show was a musical review of New York and greater-Texas themed songs and skits from various shows such as Company and Oklahoma. It was very well done. Lizzy had a few solos and did great, and a couple of the older kids were just fantastic.

Third, this last weekend was the annual Origami Convention. This year was an especially good time. More on that, plus pics of the exhibits and my new models, coming soon.

Show Time

Major crunch time at work. I’d wanted to take a summer Friday but I had to work. I was waiting on another developer to check in code most of the day, so at least I was able to get a couple things done anyway. I worked over the weekend (a few hours only). Hoping to take this coming Friday off. Lots of stuff backing up. Finally got the Mustang out for a ride on a sunny day, but still haven’t gotten to the body shop.

Major crunch time for origami too. The convention is just two weeks away. Been folding lotsa new stuff and diagramming too. Made a bunch of cool tessellations last week, including a nice version of my penflower and also a true Penrose tessellation. Did another one I call the pent-hex tessellation, but I’m not sure how to finish it, and created a new one I’m calling the pent-pent. Both are fractals. Pictures soon. I finally got my book contract signed, and went out and bought a new camera.

Working on some animals. I want to do nice versions of my Fox, Narwhal, Armadillo and Turkey, since they’re all new models diagrammed for the upcoming book, and I’ll need to photograph them soon anyway. So I went and inventoried my paper supply and started thinking about which model will go well from what paper. The big problem is that three of these model have a color change effect, which relies on the back of the sheet being white, and most of the high-end papers are single color. So I’m thinking about custom making some sheets, or maybe forgoing the color change. If I get done with those, I still have some polyhedra I want to do, plus a new Zeppelin, and working out my Space Shuttle.

Among my random tasks I booked the first legit gig for my group. It’s at the Beanberry café, where we played last year, coming up in July. Two sets, two hours of music to get together. Meanwhile I’m continuing to play open mics to develop my originals. I played another gig at the Purple Crayon Friday night. Jeannie and the girls came out, and Jen was there too, and we all hung out afterward, so it was a good time. I played Get on Back 2 U and debuted Heat Wave. Good response. GOB2U was my second time playing it, and I’d gotten over the hump of worrying about screwing up the piano part and so was able to relax and concentrate more on delivering a performance, and on the vocal phrasing. Heat Wave is just on the edge of my ability to play, but came across strongly. The response was really positive, and a good boost to my feeling like its worthwhile doing this. A couple other piano players there (who were really good) came up to me afterwards. One said it was really refreshing to hear songs that use 7/8 and whole tone scales. The other asked if Heat Wave was a Zappa song, and was knocked out when Erik told him I wrote it. So my music has an appeal to at least some people. Hopefully next time I play it Heat Wave will be further along the not-having-to-think-so-hard continuum.

Meanwhile Michelle sang in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat put on by Young at Arts. The show was really good. Lizzy was helping out backstage, and is her own show next week.

And finals! And the kids have crazy half-day schedule coming up. Oy!

Origami Video

I’ve been experimenting with making demo videos for some of my origami models. Instructional videos for origami are increasing in popularity and offer the advantage of being able to directly show complex folds that are difficult to diagram. There are a couple reasons for me getting into this now. One is for my upcoming book the publisher has requested an accompanying DVD. I’m planning on using higher-end camera for that, but for this I just used the built-in camera on my laptop, and it came out pretty well. Gives me a chance to see what works and what doesn’t. The other reason is, believe it or not, I was recently contacted by some TV producers about an origami TV show. My impression is it’s centered around giant folding completions. They asked if I could provide some video of me folding something, so here it is. I don’t know if it well ever amount to anything, but hey, you never know.

http://zingman.com/origami/oriVids/John_Szinger_Origami_Canoe.mov

The Origami Whiz Kids

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.

Book Blues

As you may already know, I’ve been working on my origami book. I’ve made a lot of progress in the last few months, largely because I’ve had interest from a publisher. Now we’re in contract negotiations, and it’s been going back and forth. There’s a bunch of points, none of them huge but all need to be worked out. It’s a bit frustrating because in general they’re slow to respond, so I’m just kinda waiting to hear back. I’d like to get it all squared away because once we have a deal, the first thing I want to do is go out and buy a nice camera so I can do the photography.

Meanwhile I’ve been doing lots of diagramming, since that’s the major part of the work. Since the new year I’ve diagrammed my Inchworm, Fox, Walrus, Elephant Seal, Frog, and I’m more than halfway thru my Narwhal and Armadillo. I’ve finally perfected the Armadillo. The key detail was the head, particularly the ears. I have only a few models left after that, but one is my Turkey, which maybe my most complex model. I’m teaching this coming weekend so I can test all the new diagrams. I hope to be done the rest by the end of June so I can bring them to the convention.

Out on the Tiles

I’ve updated my origami site with some new tessellations. I had been waiting and planned to refold these designs out of good paper and then take new pictures. But there’s a lot going on with origami and me these days, so I figgered as long as I’m updating my site I may as well throw ‘em in there. I’ll be folding lots of new stuff and taking lots of new pictures soon anyway.

Two of these designs date back to last June, when I created them at the OUSA annual convention. They are what I’m calling the Quadrose and Psuedo-Penrose Stars. The Quadrose Star came first. It features a fourfold symmetry that is easer to fold and has fewer cells (24 vs. 40). In fourfold geometry this is an allowable quasicrystal tiling. But it was just a proof of concept for the Penrose, a spiral matrix of parallelograms that features fivefold symmetry. At first I thought it was a ture Penrose tessellation, since it was in 4space, but the joining rules do not conform to the Penrose tiling. I have since folded several true Penrose quasicrystal tilings, but have yet to fold one out of good paper. They are more challenging because several different angles come together at the vertices. Meanwhile the star will have to do.

The third model is a grid of interlocking pentagons and hexagons, which has some really interesting properties if you look at it long enough. I hope to fold all of these out of good paper soon.

In related news, I just ordered a metric shitton of high-end origami paper from France. It’s from Origami shop, Nicolas Terry’s online store. The thing that motivated me was his claim that he bought up the remaining world’s supply of Elephant Hide paper, which is no longer being made and hasn’t been for sale anywhere the last few years.