Nick Robinson's Blog, page 20
March 30, 2015
dish #???
I’ve been designing dishes/bowls for decades now – the challenge of finding simple, symmetrical 3D forms never fails to intrigue my creative instincts. I began by numbering them, but at 30, started to give them more reflective names. So, here’s the latest, tentatively named a “dimpled star dish” with several variations to be explored. It’s yet another way to lock the sides into 3D, but I know there’s a more elegant lock just around the corner.
Gem Flowers in skool
My good friend John Farrell wrote to me:
“I had a small group in on Tuesday lunchtime and showed them the first part of your video about how to make the stem, which we all folded from green copy paper. They struggled a little with the reverse fold, but they have it now. Today (Wednesday) we stayed in again at lunchtime and folded the flower part. They did very well at that. I had to help some of them to collapse it into the gem shape. One of the children assembled the two parts herself with only the briefest of instruction and then proceeded to help the others. All in all, a great success!”
John works hard in his Midlands school to encourage and promote origami, it’s brilliant that something of mine has proved useful! Here is a photo of their work.
March 16, 2015
New videos
Irene Chua wrote asking for permission to make some videos of my work, to which I agreed. Here are a couple, all properly credited, such a change. Now if only people would do this without using it to score advertorial fees ;)
March 13, 2015
First elephants, now giraffes!
Hot on the heels of the “Elephant project” held by Whipsnade Zoo, the Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna is mounting a challenge to fold a record number of origami giraffes. Their aim is 1,828 giraffes, since 1828 was the year when the first giraffe was brought to Vienna. They found some instructions for an (uncredited) giraffe design on the web, which turned out to be mine, published in Super Quick Origami Animals. As is often the case, they assumed it was public domain, but have kindly added appropriate credit after I wrote to them. It’s perhaps not the most original design on the planet, but…
They wrote “We would be delighted if you took part and send us your paper giraffes. It would also be nice if you sent pictures of you folding the paper or of the completed work of art, which we will show on our Facebook pages. You will find more information and folding instructions on: http://www.zoovienna.at/news/machen-sie-mit-bei-unserem-weltrekord/ Entry deadline date is May 3rd.”
March 12, 2015
(Yet another) Bowl
Here’s a photo of my design for the Best of British book I’m working on, a dish/bowl, as yet untitled. It gets harder to find something that seems original!
March 11, 2015
Cow a bunga
Finally completed the commission for purple cows – it was such fun that I’m doing a workshop on the creative process behind the work at the BOS convention this weekend. Here are a few of the critturs trying the local grass (cough)
February 25, 2015
Best of British
I’m working on a book devoted to British folders and am making the models for photography. Here’s a classic from the mid-60s by Iris Walker – I’ve wanted to publish this for years!
February 20, 2015
Cat-astrophe!
I’ve been making purple cows (don’t ask!) for a client. I left my final sheet on the bed ready for trimming and nipped to the loo. I came back to find the awful sight shown below! Arghhhh! Cue a trip to the paper shop – hope they still have stock left!
February 9, 2015
It’s Too Late
Just (7pm) had a phone call from a TV agency – had I heard of Mel & Sue’s TV show? Yes. Would I like to come on and teach something to Mary Berry & Paul Hollywood? Yes. When is it? Midday tomorrow. Do these people never plan more than 24 hours ahead?
I’m reminded of a similar (non)event a few years ago, when the Graham Norton show invited me to come along and teach a paper penis to Susanna Hoffs from the Bangles! This personal wet dream scenario was also the very next day and sadly also impossible.
Grrrrr
January 30, 2015
Paper Gnashers
Following a recent job for a client in the dental industry, I was asked to come up with a simple origami tooth. Simpler, that is, than Marc Kirschenbaum’s excellent design, which they had used in some earlier PR. So after some experimentation, a variation of the bird base that I used for my recent “Gem Flower” did the job. Since we’ve had heavy snow recently, it seemed an excellent place to shoot some photos ;)
