Nick Robinson's Blog, page 31

Plane & simple

When I wrote my first proper book in 1991, little did I think it would still be on sale (in one form or another) twenty years later. To be truthful, I’d completely forgotten about the design a facebook friend Carlos Bocanegra posted this photo of recently, called the Canard.

The book has been repackaged and translated many times (with not a solitary bean coming my way) so it must have something good about it – perhaps it’s the fact that they didn’t accept my hand-drawn diagrams and had someone redo them! I went computer-drawn form then onwards…

 

Origami Deutschland in Weimar

Although I was unable to attend the 2013 German Convention, I contributed some designs to the Tagungsband (conference proceedings) of Origami Deutschland. Today a weighty parcel from Germany pooped through the letterbox, containing 276 pages of origami diagrams, plus a white cloth carry bag.

Plenty to have a go at for the next few weeks! It’s really worth sharing your creations around the world, you get so much in return.

Under the counter origami

Hush, hush, whisper who dares, Nicholas Robinson’s letting it slide. I had an offer of work recently for a company making an origami animals box, along the lines of (but not the same as!) the image here.

Essentially, it’s everything I hate about mass-market origami – tawdry, badly designed and doing the world of origami no favours at all. People see the pretty packaging and say “I’ll have a go at origami! They’re then faced with bad diagrams of worse models.

Most require cuts to form legs and have been bought from a Chinese company. My job, and I have chosen to accept it (work is work), is to create diagrams that can be followed by the average beginner. The models themselves are just about doable, but I have a 1 X A4 page limit per model, including text. It won’t be easy!

I’ve also decided to mask my general drawing style, so nobody will track me down afterwards! This is proving harder than you might think ;)

Table Magic by Robert Harbin

In a recent collection of material belated bequeathed to me by the late Ralph Matthews, I’ve found some interesting things. One is an 18 page leaflet entitled “Table Magic” by Robert Harbin. Clearly a play on his “Paper Magic” title, it seems to be a private souvenir created for Swantex Towel company, who have their advert on the back cover.

The artwork is Harbin at his finest, showing how to make half a dozen napkin folds, with a very short history of the subject in the centre.

Words of wisdom

Check this utterly cringe-making review of “World’s best” – it seems to have been read by a female robot, then edited to make it even less fluent.

She seems to have no real idea what the words she’s saying mean (“origami patterns”?) – whoever made it, I hope they didn’t get paid much and can’t believe for a minute it sold a single extra copy ;)

Oh heck, there’s another for “Absolute Beginners Origami”. Don’t bother looking for it…

Fork Handles?

There’s a famous Two Ronnies sketch called “Fork Handles” (check it on youtub) which always tickled my fancy. My dear departed friend David Petty created an origami design called “two candles”, which inspired me to create this tribute fold. I’m not sure he got the joke ;)

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Cheap as chips

Browsing through a huge remaindered book warehouse just outside of Matlock when what should I see, sandwiched between the Weather and Fishing, but a rehashed edition of an old planes book of mine. It was on  offer at the bargain price of £2.99, so they should (cough) fly off the shelves….

(Don’t) Stop the Wedding!

Through very unusual circumstances, I was asked to provide origami for a wedding near Liverpool. They wanted someone to wander around providing folded mementos for the guests. Normally, I’d run a mile from this sort of thing, but for reasons I won’t go into, I decided to take this engagement.

The “do” was at a fancy club on the banks of the River Dee. The sun was setting when I arrived and it was a glorious sight. I’d never been to the Wirral before and it had a clean, countrified atmosphere. As the light faded, you could clearly see the lights of Wales on the other side of the estuary.

Dressed to kill in a spotless white shirt and tie (shock! horror!) I met the beautiful bride and groom, (the latter already half cut) and presented them with a pre-folded rose and pipe respectively – he even modelled the pipe in the group photo.

For two and a half hours I plied the tables, being almost the only sober person in the room apart from the Scouse DJ, who had 5 *terabytes* of audio data on his laptop, techy fans!

Models included pecking crows, flapping birds, koalas, hearts, flowers, penguins, and the delightful “curved” variant of Yoshizawa butterfly. People were generally amazed at seeing these materialise in front of them and their responses made the evening less tiring.

I was finished by 10.30 and slipped out after managing to extract payment from a proud (and hugely intoxicated) father of the groom. So, tiring and perhaps not the sort of thing I want to do regularly, but another reminder of how appealing origami can be.

 

Great news!

Had some fantastic news – Gay Gross has asked me to do the illustrations for an origami book she is working on – I’m thrilled to be working with her once more.

A Fishy Tail

Many (many) years ago, my good friend Mick Guy showed me an Escher Fish design he had created from a 2×1 rectangle. Clearly, the challenge was there to do the same from a square, which I duly managed to do – diagrams here. It was published in my Origami Bible (the world’s worst selling origami book of all time) and promptly lapsed into hibernation. Or whatever fish do.

Until, that is, the Frenchman Cristophe Boudias requested permission to make an exhibit from it. Unlike some folders, I have no objection if people wish to fold and display my models, indeed I’m honoured. And so it was that he made a long series of fish!