Flower Instructions, great video instructions for Sun Dial (not mine), Centerfold Pictures, New Curvy Bits-“Merged Curves”

Flower instructions video I made.

The flower combines some aspects of two flowers (one of which is the Lotus flower) and another I think I’ve seen and then modifies and shapes the product. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5eeJScdEQ4

Video instructions for the Sun Dial I originally posted pictoral instructions for were made and posted here http://oqueemeuenosso.blogspot.com/2010/08/origami-modular-relogio-do-sol-sun-dial.html The blog is also great to check out; it has great links and instructions.  It is very well done and I always appreciate people making instructions since mine tend to be minimalistic.  The blog were it is posted http://oqueemeuenosso.blogspot.com/ .

Centerfold-The organizers really worked hard and so many people praised the bag it wasn’t even funny.  So thanks to everyone who is willing to put in the work.  Positives-I liked the lack of ticketing, but that may just be personal preference.  The hotel let the rooms be used later than initially indicated.  The bar was great, drinkable coffee a dollar and if you wanted it with a bit of chemical happiness that was very reasonable.  The DJ in the bar was great.  They organized shuttles to the exhibit.  Negatives-Just the smells in the hotel, it was not clean the smell of stale cigarette smell was overwhelming, but I also am  hypersensitive to these things.  Indiana reststops scare me  I actually took photos in a stall just so I’d have proof of the stuff I saw etched into the stall walls and door.  So a thank you to everyone that ran it, I know it’s a boatload of work.  To the people I met-you were wonderful, keep playing around.  To everyone I should have met but didn’t, hopefully I will some you at some future time.  Shar’s presentation of some 5OSME slides reminded James and I how awesome that was.  There was a lot of 5OSME people there.  The guests were Robert Lang, Tomoko Fuse, and David Brill.  Took a cat class with David.  Missed Tomoko and Langs classes cause I can’t tell time.

Here are where the Centerfold photos start http://www.flickr.com/photos/christine42/4922078643/

Finally these are some of the curved pieces I’ve been working on.  Getting larger is an ongoing challenge of mine, as is thinking of making things decent for display instead of everything being tests and getting distracted by the next shiny idea.

Sine Waves and Twisty Headaches

So for some stuff for Singapore I’ve been playing with Sine Curves and this is some of the stuff that are outshoots of that.  So the paper I was working on was on rotation and compression limitation of curved corrugations and these are the tests.  Eventually I will do a post on the results, but there is still a ton to do.

Where they rotate through has a big difference on the degrees of rotation.  I call it spine one and spine two.  Spine two goes through the maximum of a spine curve and can be rotated a lot more.  The corrugation below is using spine two.

It’s really hard to see but this had some great textural and rotational properties that got me all excited, that and I wanted a choker and matching bracelet out of copper.

Granada, Tessellations, and Other Stuff

Wormhole….Radial 12ths.

What I played with during siesta time in Granada.

GRANADA, the ALHAMBRA, and LACK OF LUGGAGE/CAMERA FAILURE/SICKNESS

The trip to Spain gets a 2 while Granada gets a 10/10 and was the most amazing structure I have ever seen (it just eeks out the Eiffel Tower, although that is still another structure every human should see).  The trip itself gets a two as I didn’t have luggage for 60% of my trip and let me tell you that shopping for fat girl clothes in Granada is one of the lower rungs of hell, also camera failure and severe sickness/pain on the way home sucked.  Granada itself is a maze of tiny streets and cobblestone (in the old part of the city).  Downtown different streets had different lighted designs or chandeliers and was an explosion of activity at night, when darkness fell.  I used industrial strength sun block which was like grease paint.  Gelato shops were on every corner it seemed, and I highly  recommend pistachio or lemon.  The dried ham in the region is intensely flavorful, but is very hard to chew.  I didn’t eat out much, one meal a day, as I had breakfast at the hotel I stayed at, and skipped lunch or had fruit.  Hotel Mate Leo is a great place to stay.  I was on the fifth floor and highly enjoyed my stay.  The receptionists were all very helpful and several called and tried to help me with my luggage travails.  In fact I didn’t ask them, they volunteered.  For the price and location (dead center) I loved the place and will go back again.  I realize that July is not considered a great season to visit, but I found the heat bearable since it was a dry heat.  The piece de resistance is the Alhambra a complex that is made up of the old fortress, Nasrid Palace, and the Generalife.  The fortress is amazing and the oldest of the three, boggling the mind that it is still standing after so many years.  The Generalife had gardens that bring tears to the eyes and don’t miss the water escalator, which is stairs with cold water running down troughs on either side .  The most amazing and most visited structure is Nasrid palace.  I won’t bother to describe it in detail as I am still viklempt just thinking about it, but I will say it is patterns everywhere and every time you think they have reached the apex of human design, you go into another room that leaves you breathless and speachless.  It was humbling and worth every walk up the hill (you can take a bus, but I recommend the hill.)  It was in every aspect beautiful and compelling and I hope you have a chance to visit.

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.

Gothic Crosses Origami Tessellation and Dollar Bill Dresses

So the push to finish old crap projects is on.  Not that it’s garbage,  I just haven’t really had time and impetus lately to actually start any projects I’ve laid out.  I should explain my approach is rather ADHD and my scatterbrained approach means time is relative.  I wish I had focus.  Partially finished projects litter my place and it is frustrating to find incomplete ideas, manifest in paper.  

Sorry, enough kvetching. What is great is the number of folders who have taken up this avenue of origami and are running with it.  I look forward to seeing them reinvent the wheel and then make it brand new.  So the first pic is a tessellation that looks to me like “gothic” styled crosses from one angle and flowers (which they are on the other side) from another.  This is from two years ago and had been 1/3 finished for a long time.  Well now it’s done if not clean, but I am not starting it over.

The dollar bill dresses came out of an hour spurt of dollar excess last weekend.  It reminded me of a peculiar childhood habit of mine-tissue dresses made for Barbie and Skipper.  My Mom was never one for Barbie’s, but I ended up getting one and a Skipper as a present for my ninth? birthday from a little girl named Candy.  I would make dresses out of tissues and ripping them and tucking and pleating for fun.  It was a solitary activity as I didn’t play with dolls a ton, but I still have a doll with her raggedy tissue dress.  The grey one was simply an attempt to design with a square, sort of envisioned it as a grey silk chiffon.  I have the grey dress roughly diagrammed and can post as soon as I know it isn’t an infinite repeat, so I will be asking the o-list about whether the grey one is running about.  I would assume the dollar bill dresses are also repetitive although I haven’t seen them before.  The one that feels most familiar is the banded dress with the accepted bodice.  The top ones are flat and the other two dresses are 3d.

3D Origami Tessellation Suggestions and Other Stuff

Suggestions For Making 2d Tessellations 3d

 

1. Take any flat tiling and see if you have free flaps of paper.  When you have free edges take the flaps push up from underneath and push into the center of the flap from the top.  Consider the flat tessellation a net for an infinite number of tessellations.
2. This does not have to be done symmetrically, but find the pattern so you can repeat it (although randomization can be interesting and is a good thing to play with).
3. If you have successive layers then push the paper in or out in varying areas of the free flaps to get a wide variety of different designs.
4. To create variation make the pleat depth vary.  Instead of folding one layer over fold two.  It gives you more potential collapses and variations.
5. If you have done Eric Gjerde’s spread hex I have a variation you can fold on this site.  Just look for the Labyrinth tutorial.  Take any you have made and start playing with variation on with and 3 dimensionality.  
6. Another technique is to layer grids.  First create a tessellation and then overlay another as if the grid was untouched.  Generally this gives you extra paper that is constrained that you can play with.

 

The following two pics show the consequences of successive layering of pushing free edges in and out.  The flat tessellation is first

From above

From Underneath

 

Other Stuff

E-mails about predecessors

I always appreciate information about designs and overlaps that people send me.  Sometimes I see the connection and at times I do not (as I once received an email with only an attachment of a crane in regards to a tessellation), but it is always interesting to see connections and I always try to post links/info (although sometimes a bit slow).  

Deb Pun Discoe sent me an email “…your heart lock reminded me of Alfredo Giunta’s “Angel” as published  in an out-of-print “Origami : 30 fold-by-fold projects” compiled by Paulo Mulatinho”

Karen Reed also sent me an e-mail about a potential forerunner to the takeout container “I was just looking at the Florence Temko collection, mounted by Diana Lee’s Origami Resource Center website, and noticed this model:“Desktop Basket by Florence Temko Variation of a traditional model”  You can view the picture gallery here http://www.origami-resource-center.com/Temko-B.html .

Thanks to both ladies for the information.

Slightly funny (at least to me) variant of a Valentine’s day bowl.  “Cough Up Your Heart”

Trying to make faces from pleats has been interesting.  This was playing with a heart bowl I made.  Only tried to make a nose and hint at a chin.  The chin I took away because it didn’t work.

“Origami Tessellations” by Eric Gjerde and Most Recent Creation-Sortof

So I originally was waiting until my ordered copy of Origami Tessellations:  Awe Inspiring Geometric Designs came to write a review about Eric’s new book, but while it hasn’t come a copy has come from another source.  To be fair this review is hardly unbiased as I know Eric and he is in part responsible for sending me down this path of obsession.  He is always trying to bring people into the tessellating fold and his book is part of this.

The book starts off explaining what a tessellation is, a basic history of origami tessellations,  and how to do a basic grid.  He shows the fundamentals of tessellation design, such as how to create pleate intersections both with a square based grid and a equilateral triangle based grid.  Interspersed throughout are pictures of tessellations that appear in Islamic architecture.    After showing basic twists and folds with computer illustrations he has a beginners section on tessellations.  Number two, Spread Hexagons, is my favorite, probably because it was the tessellation that he had out that I looked at when we met at OUSA (Oops edit 2.5 not 3.5 years ago).  Five by four has a beautifully modern look, while Chateau-Chinon by Christiane Bettens evokes traditional tilings.  His intermediate projects are great introductions to folding designs with more than one type of fold/twist.  My personal favorite in the book is Negative Space Stars, a design that seems impossible without cuts is clean and compelling.  The one side clean negative stars and the other a pattern that really evokes the Islamic Tessellations that I personally love so much.

At the end of the book is a gallery and has tessellations from a wide range of people; Robert Lang, Joel Cooper, Christiane Bettens, Chris Palmer, Polly Verity, Sipho Mabona, Eric (of course), and me.  I have to say it was very surprising when Eric first asked if he could include some of my tessellations as I hadn’t been folding tessellations very long.  The creating and designing of tessellations has exploded recently and I know that it is in large part to Eric, to the Flickr group he started and his website http://www.origamitessellations.com.  The book is as clear and concise as a book can be in teaching origami tessellations.  Purchasing a copy is a great idea for the math lover, origami lover, art lover, or just anyone who can find the beauty in the transformation of paper into art.

So order here http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1568814518?ie=UTF8&tag=origamitessel-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1568814518 or go to his website to order.

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Recent mod of an old and problematic tessellation.  I made the grid about a mm to small and it created a host of problems so I took photos and then modified it a bit.

Pretty old school for my tessellations design, but I like it well enough.