I was recently commissioned to fold a smaller version of my recent large Green Vase. I kept the same painted pattern, but I used a little yellower green, which is more the color I originally wanted.
It’s fun seeing the two pieces together! Even though the smaller piece is almost 10 inches tall, it looks very little and cute next to the larger piece.
New Work: Mini Green Vase Read More »
I recently posted photos of several large-scale origami pieces I folded. These pieces incorporate painted diagonal elements, but the folded patterns are not much more complicated than the ones from the series of tutorials I wrote a while back.
Here are the crease patterns for two of those pieces (and a few more comments below):
In both of these pieces the painted regions have sinusoidally curved edges that in the folded form create the illusion of flat planes. This is all based on geometry: a plane that cuts through a cylinder at an angle creates a sine wave when the cylinder is unrolled. My forms are more complicated than just cylinders and there are places where the paper overlaps. That means a sine wave doesn’t create a perfect plane, but it’s close enough for the eye to follow.
The crease pattern for the turquoise vase is exactly the type of pattern I described in my earlier tutorials. The purple vase is similar – the top section follows the same type of pattern, and the bottom part is a simple corrugated pattern I previously used in my diamond vases. The corrugation requires some extra glue at the base, but it’s a similar level of difficulty to fold as the curved-crease pleats.
Crease Patterns: Large Vases Read More »
Over the past several weeks, I’ve been folding stars, fractals, and tessellations for fun. I bought some pretty papers several years ago that are too thin for my normal style of folding, but I finally used them for some models that don’t require as sturdy of paper. None of these designs are original – they include Chris Palmer’s Flower Tower, Evan Zodl’s EZ Star, Dasa Severova’s Star Mathilda, tessellations from Eric Gjerde’s book, and a few others. These models are on the wall in my room now, and they help fill up some space that has been empty for quite a while.
I recently posted the first two pieces from my new large series that I folded over the summer. Here are the final two pieces from the large series for my show at Furman:
The turquoise vase is the tallest piece of the series by a bit, at about 22 inches tall. Folding on such a large scale is a bit more challenging than folding smaller pieces. These pieces are so large that reaching to the bottom required essentially putting my entire arm inside the piece. The folding requires a whole lot more maneuvering of the large paper, and the paper barely fit on my desk.
The purple bowl is actually folded from two long rectangles cut from the same sheet of Elephant Hide. Instead of one 70 x 100 cm sheet, I essentially cut and re-combined to make one 50 x 140 cm sheet (minus a bit of overlap). That let me fold a wider bowl than would be possible from a single uncut sheet. I like the appearance of the having the white stripe on top of the black and purple, especially since the paper was originally white.
I’ll be back at Furman next weekend for the reception for my show (October 24, 6:30-8:30 pm) and to take down the show.
New Work: Large Series (2) Read More »
This summer, I folded a series of four large-scale pieces in preparation for my show at Furman University. These pieces are each folded from almost an entire sheet of Elephant Hide paper, cut down slightly from the 70 x 100 cm sheet. These two pieces are each around 20 inches (50 cm) tall.
After folding two series in fairly neutral colors, I was very excited to start a new series with much brighter colors. I kept the black and white in these pieces and the diagonal elements to create connections with my recent two series.
As always, I painted the paper before folding it. Painting on such a large scale creates some challenges I hadn’t dealt with in my smaller pieces. I built up several layers of watered-down acrylic paint on each piece to get the value and hue I wanted. Since I knew from past experience that it’s very hard to paint a flat color, I intentionally added a bit of texture to the paint using a brush.
I’ll write more about the folding process for these pieces when I post the final two pieces of the series.
New Work: Large Series (1) Read More »
I installed my show, Intersections: The Art and Science of Folded Paper, in the art gallery at Furman last Friday. The show will be open until October 25. There will be a reception on October 24 from 6:30-8:30pm, and I will be giving a gallery talk at 7pm.
The show includes 16 pieces from 3 series, as well as 6 crease patterns (two from each series). The pieces from my Intersections and Diagonal Shift series are all ones I’ve posted previously; the third series and the crease patterns are brand new for this show.
The new series includes the four pieces in the back row of the photo above. It’s not obvious because of the perspective, but these pieces are quite large: up to about 22 inches tall! After almost two years of working in mostly neutral colors, I was very ready to fold some brightly-colored pieces. I’ll post more about this series later.
The crease patterns are also newly drawn, and printed the actual size of the paper I used to fold the pieces. They help connect the artistic aspects of my work with the mathematical/engineering side. I’ve posted several crease patterns previously for test folds and simpler pieces, but these are the first I’ve drawn for full models. Again, I’ll post more details later.
Here are a few more views of the show:
Furman Show Photos Read More »
I am getting ready for a solo show of my artwork this fall at Furman University in Greenville, SC. The show, Intersections: The Art and Science of Folded Paper, will be open October 6-25 with a reception 6:30-8:30 pm October 24. Since I’m an alum, the art department invited me to do this year’s Homecoming art show.
The show will include pieces from my Intersections and Diagonal Shift series, as well as a new series I haven’t posted any photos of yet. I will also be showing several crease patterns to show the scientific/engineering aspects of my work.
Upcoming Show: Furman University, Greenville, SC Read More »
Over the past month, I have been test-folding lots of corrugation patterns in preparation for a new series. Most of these are not original designs; they are folded from crease patterns, reverse-engineered, or experiments vaguely based on images from the Flickr Origami Corrugations group. These are all folded from very cheap origami paper, not anything at all suitable for complex designs. I have previously folded a couple designs incorporating both pleated and corrugated segments, but only with very simple corrugated patterns. I am hoping that with more practice, I will be able to incorporate more complex corrugations and tessellations into my vases.
Here are a couple closer-up images of some of the corrugations:
Test Folds: Assorted Corrugations Read More »
This piece is part of my Diagonal Shift series and is very strongly based on one of the earliest pieces in the series. I used (almost) the same crease pattern but re-designed the painted pattern. The painted pattern is somewhat reminiscent of my Floating Diagonal Shift, where the painted parts would align if the segments of the vase were aligned with each other. I enjoy creating the illusion of impossibility with these pieces.
New Work: Double Diagonal Shift Vase 3 Read More »
This piece is a continuation of my Diagonal Shift series, building especially from one of the earlier pieces in the series. When I first tried folding this concept, there wasn’t enough difference between the slopes of the diagonal line and the horizontal line, so the two halves of the vase weren’t clearly separated enough. When I re-designed the form for this piece, I made the diagonal much more dramatic. This creates an illusion that the top half of the vase is balancing on the tip of the bottom half. Of course, as in the other pieces in this series, there is a narrower piece connecting the two halves.
I also played a bit more with the colors in this piece. The copper and the green-gold give more color contrast than I have been using. Also, it’s not obvious from the photo, but the copper areas have a thin layer of copper paint over a layer of gold. The subtle color differences add more interest to the piece.
New Work: Diagonal Shift Variant Vase 2 Read More »
