Nick Robinson's Blog, page 30

Conch extended?

My good friend Francis Ow commented on the apparent right-angled corner in the top left of the first photo (see the previous post). This is the original centre of the paper, as shown below. There are ways this corner can be “dealt with”, but they push it past the level at which most people could fold it. This is a moral question – do we strive for accuracy, aesthetics, simplicity? I’m simply not sure! However, I took it a stage further and the corner can be “lost” at the expense of many folders who would find the sink almost impossible to do. Both versions have their merits, which do you prefer? I hope to teach this at a mini-meeting later today – I’ll see what the feedback is.

And always let your conch shells be your guide

Currently designing and finding models for a book about Origami & Buddhism. One of the symbols used by Buddhists is a conch shell, I’m told. I started with shell techniques established by Lang & Fuse, then stripped them right back to minimise complexity (which would seem suitable for the subject matter). I’m still not sure whether to round off the final two corners of the spiral or not.

Origami at Bishop’s House

The event went really well – here’s some images from the day. Thanks to Wayne Brown who brought a wondeful set of exhibits!

An ancient art in an ancient building!

I’ll be doing some teaching along with a few friends this sunday in the medieval venue of Bishop’s House, (shown here before the current heatwave!) happily situated just a short distance below where I live.

The council have allowed a local “friends” group to take over management of the House and I’m helping out where I can.

http://bishopshouse.org.uk/index.php/events/160-origami-at-bishop-s-house

2 new books ;)

The 3rd & 4th books in the “my first origami” series for Dover will be out soon – they are Christmas and Paper Planes. Both full of wonderful models, beautifully illustrated and photographed by yours truly. Why not buy the complete set??

 

Simple geometry

A possible candidate for the “geometric origami” book I’m working on, although I’m not sure exactly what geometry properties it demonstrates!!

crease 4×4
valley twice to make a 4×1 strip
add one diagonal in each small square
form a tube, tucking 1 square inside
twist!

Curiously, if you view it with a corner pointing upwards, the mind suddenly interprets it as an octahedron with sections missing….

Simon Anderson RIP

I think it’s safe to say the vast majority of the origami world will not have known Simon Anderson, a Danish folder who died on May 20th 2013. I first learned about him when I corresponded with Thoki Yenn in the 80s – he would say “have you seen the latest design by Simon? It’s wonderful!”

Simon’s story is one of an intense relationship with paper-folding, which ultimately formed a wedge between him and those who had been his freinds. You can read his story and see some of his work at paperfolding.dk, lovingly maintained (to strict XHMTL standards) by Hans Dybkjær.

I have vague memories of writing to him once, but the fold that I remember him most by was a seemingly innocuous fold from A4 that looks like a waterbomb when finished. “So what”, I hear you say  – but trust me, try it and if you have any appreciation of the folding art, you’ll delight in the elegance of the twist the forms the model in a single movement.

Irish eyes will be smiling…

Well, they may be when they hear I’ve booked my flight to Dublin for Dublin’s Origami Gathering on July 27th. I’m really excited about this, since I’ve never been to Ireland before! This has prompted me to waste half an hour of my life creating the tribute below ;)

The Quiet Folder

The first ever OUSA live webcast teaching session!

Today I taught a class live to the Origami USA convention in New York!

As their first ever live webcast teaching session, things went really well from my perspective, a “big up” for Marcio who prepared and tested the technology. Clearly, OUSA can now invite any folder in the world to their convention, at zero cost!I’ll certainly be passing this experience on to the BOS.

The webcast we had arranged was scheduled for an hour later than I expected (mixups in time differences) and it wouldn’t let me log in, so we reverted to good old skype, which was fine – I could both hear and see everyone. My webcam is a really cheap model, so the colours and sharpness may have been lacking, I’ll invest in a higher-res model if I do this again.

The class itself was scheduled for 4.15 although I was expecting it at 4 – there was just the one enthusiastic lady there, but we chatted amiably for 15 mins and several others joined us. Great to see Tom Hull pop by to say hello, but I fear the class was a bit advanced for him ;)

I taught three designs, “Sue’s Flapper”, “Mad Dog” (I loved someone’s suggestion of “Rabid Dog” – I’ll rename it immediately!) and a “Dodecagon Dissection” unit from a work-in-progress book to be called “Geometric Origami”. The audience were much more polite than a typical British group, I suspect my Brit humour didn’t *quite* come across as intended, but everyone seemed to finish the models, which was a great relief.

The class departed and Marcio logged off at the end, but somehow a small video screen remained on my screen and a young boy I hadn’t seen before came into view, waving. I think his name was Thomas, from Viginia, so we spoke a little – see the image top right.!

Nice sites!

Happened upon this site – very attractive – heading back up one directory level, there’s even more…

http://www.mathigon.org/origami/

Another site well worth looking through is that of Soma Cruz on Facebook. here’s a lion of his that is up for sale!