Another Year Another Fold

I just got back from New York.  I arrived Thursday and came back today.  I stayed with Adrienne in Brooklyn in a converted garage.  Like last year I didn’t take classes, because I taught 5 classes and figured there wouldn’t be time.  I missed seeing “Into the Fold” but did get to meet a lot of interesting folks.  Interesting talk with Ray Schamp.  Added a new face to Yaffa, Goran.  Made a “purse.”  Slept little, enjoyed my time thoroughly.  Saw more of NY than usual.  One thing that sometimes gets lost with convention goers is that we are in New York which is a fabulous city and the 4 square blocks around FIT are not where the flavor is.  Harassed a bunch of people smarter than me about curvature and promptly “fired” them for not having the answer to my “sortoff” questions, although they both suggested I harass Erik Demaine which I will be doing as soon as I can craft an email that doesn’t make me feel slow.  My questions arn’t really concise or clear, simply put I don’t understand enough about curved rotation to understand what is going on.  

The people in my box design course did amazing and I was happy that everyone who attended my Labyrnth class understood the technique.  Ben Parker’s work has definately progressed and Joel is now working on busts along with the faces.  The form of the chest was amazing.  Seth has great work and I loved Sipho’s way of displaying models.  Goran has started pulling apart and approaching very organic nifty forms.  Ana Sofia helped me make two large models for the oversized folding challenge (Two thumbs up for Sok) and disappeared before I could say my goodbyes.  Joseph’s perfect piggy “Cleofis” has a lovely spot on my shelf (gracias oh Master JoWu;P.)  Michael was the most adorable child ever.  Brian Chan is still making amazing models and Alexander Soukas had lovely tessellations.  Daniel Kwan is probably the most precise folder ever and has little crease elves helping him.  Philip and Christiane were my first picture in NY and it was of their feet!  

We took a terrific three hour boat tour on Tuesday, thanks Eric (for everything).  A big thanks to Adrienne for her couch and her roommates tolerance of a squatter.

Adrienne and me 

Ben Parker looking somber on boat

My temporary bedroom and the plexiglass bridge

The happy Wu

Goran, Bernie, Joel

Christianne, PCB, Tomohiro

Ape challenge, Sipho, Ben

Oversized folding challenge (Photo also known as “Shri’s Bum”) Ray Schamp

My exhibit (the blue thing is the curvy thing I wanted to ask questions about)

There were a bunch of things I sadly didn’t get photos of as I was rushing to do this before heading off to teach, so for the pictures I missed sorry and for everyone I had great conversations with thanks.

More photos here http://www.flickr.com/photos/christine42/

The photos are tagged “ousa 2009″

See you next year (maybe)

Thanks,

Christine

Instructable: Easter Egg Box

Made an instructable for one of the containers

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easter-Egg-or-Candy-container-computer-aided-orig/

Computer Aided Origami-Candy Boxes

So I reverse engineered a box for a friend that has the origins listed as a Japanese Anemone box that Christiane recognized as similar to a Fujimoto box.  They are all variations on a theme.  So I decided to play with curvature on these boxes and the results are below along with nondirectional crease patterns.  What was so interesting is that a slight change with where the curvature is makes a large difference in the end product.  So everything is creative commons on this site as always.  Hope you enjoy.  If you would like the viacad or adobe illustrator files email me and I can send them so you can tweak the design yourself.  Remember playing with a design is half the fun.

 

 

This particular design is reminiscent of the collapsible lids.  I also employed these nibs in a box I did awhile back.

Origami Dollar Bill 3d Mini Dress Instructions

1.  First fold the dollar bill lengthwise with a mountain fold using the top and bottom of the one as a guide.

 

2.  Fold over between one to two mm to the outside.  This is to taste.

3.  Mountain fold in half.

4.  First orient the dollar bill like below.  Take the crease and fold up to the inner part of the O.

5.  Mountain fold so you are folding across the semicircle.

6.  Fold the semicircle up to about the tip of the pyramid.

7.On an angle fold back the bottom edge of the bustier.  The top part of the skirt angles because of a spreas squash.  I recommend looking ahead to the next few steps first.

8.  View from the back.  Do the same symmetrically to the other side.

9.  Back View-flip over.

10.  Front view.

11.  Fold down so there is about as much white as color.

12.  Fold back up so the white is the bustier edge detail

13.  Mountain fold edges on either side to shape bustier

14.  Pull the center flap down

15.  Flatten symmetrically as shown.

16.  Shape edge of lower skirt on both sides symmetrically

17.  Fold the bottom up to taste.  In the back fold over the edges that are sticking out and tuck under the pleat at the waist.  Pull apart the creases at the bottom to give 3 dimensionality to the bottom.  It will not necessarily lie flat.

18.  Now I push the pleat apart where the bust should be to make the bustier 3d.  You are expanding the pleat only at the tip of the breast and then flattening the new creases.  You can see the side view.

19.  The last step is to push down the centerbar so that the bustier is more 3d and you only see the white band.  Then you are done.  Shape till happy.

Book Review: Paper Illusions: The Art of Isabelle De Borchgrave

So to be blunt this is a very expensive book, 75 dollars to be precise, although you can now get it on amazon for $44.  Even with a discount it is a heavy hitter for price.  The fact is it is quite fascinating.  As someone who is fascinated with both costume design (I started out as a theater major, worked in the costume department of a theater and have been a dresser for shows) and tessellations/corrugations this book scratches both itches.  

Isabelle is a Belgian artist whose work is immaculately detailed.  It is not strictly origami, but is a glorious fusion of paper, paint, thread, and the human imagination.  Her work is detailed recreations of historical garments; she makes “silk” hankerchiefs out of paper, she paints the paper until it, as an alchemist’s dream, becomes sumptuous cloth.  The wigs are folded freehand it appears, and her pleated Silk Fortuny ‘Delphos’ dress with veil and gold leaf necklace is a masterpiece (plate 49).  To most folders her bracelet (plate 46) will be very familiar.  My personal favorite is plate 29 which is a tunic decorated with hand painted flowers, from and allegorical figure from the painting Primavera by Botticelli.  It is art as clothing as paper, my head spins with its fabulosity…  I recommend checking out this artist’s work.  It is a surreal collection of beauty and astounding attention to detail.  The pics below are from the traveling exhibit that has been shown all across Europe.

Older Origami Tessellation Tests and Modifications of a Curved Corrugation

 

As I never leave anything well enough alone I’ve been playing with a prior test.  ”Degrees of Freedom” is testing the rotational capacity of a curved corrugation.  I’m trying to think of an easy way to create an automata to create the nifty curves that can arise when playing with this.  Below the blue piece is an assortment of stuff that peaked my interest, but never got beyond that.  Tests are everywhere, finished pieces rare.

 

The one I most want to play with is the yellow design.  It was interesting how it collapsed.  The orange piece I liked, it stems from a series of layers I explored in the hexagonal world, but sadly ignored in the square based world.  The main reason I never continued was the number of iterations I would have to do.  The rectangle tess is interesting, because it is very simple.  It is a modification of a basic hex twist.

Origami Tessellation /Corrugation-Blue Diving

 

Playing around lately, a little slow at doing things.  Non uniform deformation and intentional partial crumpling.  Wicked strong.  I stood on it with my foot and it didn’t crush.  The tighter the compression the stronger the structure.

Structural Exploration

Daniel MacGibbon, an architecture student, has a website where he is exploring origami as an integral part of architectural design.  He has his abstract listed and has pictures of his explorations.  While not extensive I think this site is definitely worth checking out. http://designstudio5.blogspot.com  I think that the exploration of geometry in design (which has been significantly increasing) will radically change architectural design (along with structural integrity explorations), furniture design, etc…  Daniel is also on flickr under his own name.

Terrific Blog- Dear Ada and Old Tessellations/Pieces

I came across an amazing blog that has a ton of great posts on design, architecture, and artists. It isn’t strictly origami, but it has things that have some relationships to the art. I’m also not hung up on it being about origami, but on having posts/links about subjects I find interesting and this blog doesn’t fail. Check out http://dearada.typepad.com .

This is an artist that does marvelous stuff with wire, not Polly though I adore her work.  http://dearada.typepad.com/dear_ada/2009/03/benedetta-mori-ubaldini.html .  So much design and art and so little time.

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Unrelated…. I have decided to go to Granada, Spain this summer to see the Alhambra and architecture.  I would love to hear any suggestions for things to do besides the obvious places.  Also if anyone is around there and interested in meeting up to fold I would love to meet.  I am currently planning on going in early July.

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So as some have noted photography isn’t my forte or for that matter puntuality.  Some of these I’ve never posted and some I killed pics by accident so here is a bit of older stuff since I certainly havn’t been creating anything new that’s interesting.  While cleaning out some old boxes I found a bunch of my old boxes from before I was tessellating.  I am cleaning them off and in some cases going to redo and post (more for my limited memory than anything else)  The “Saffron in Curves” was when I was playing with non linear g. pleats.  The black landscape from San Fran a test and the red bowl is just a pic redo since the early pics were horrible.

Instructions for Pleated Origami Dress From a Square

1.  This starts from a square.  I recommend a thin paper, kami is fine.  Fold in half lengthwise and then quarter.  

2.  Then fold in eighths as shown above.

3.  Flip over.

4.  From the eighth crease to the left of the center crease you will fold it 1/3 away from the center line.  You will repeat this action 2 more times on  that side.  Then repeat on the other side.

5.  Mountain fold to a little less than a third away from the bottom.  A lot of these folds are to taste.

6.  Then fold back up-about a quarter inch.

7,8.  A little less than a half inch below mountain fold and then bring it back down about a quarter.  This is the belt area and will be fairly thick.  Mountain fold the dress back down to get the belt as shown in the picture.

9.  You are spreading  the pleat in the back so the edge from the tip of the pleat goes to the bottom of the dress. It folds back on the first pleat.  You can see the light mountain folds in the previous step.   The spread to the top is to taste.

 

10.  If you like the neckline as is you’re done, otherwise(this works better if the belt is bigger and the bodice shorter)….To do the neckline mountain fold as indicated symmetrically on both sides.  Fold the rest on a curve to taste.  

11.  To flatten on the back you will need to spread the pleats a bit.

12.  These are minor variations.  I did a small inside reverse fold on the bottom, then I did it to the other side.  The final dress I pulled apart the skirt pleats lightly and enlarged the belt so it became more of a bodice.

 

It is easy to play with these and simple corrugations will work fine in the skirt area.  Changing the size of the belt and how you fold the neckline can greatly modify the aesthetics of the dress.  Plus it would be easy to play with the bodice pleats.