I’ve played quite a bit with ways to curve the axis of paper tubes, starting with simple pleats and extending to the crimp-bends that I used in my curved-neck vases and an assortment of geometrically distorted models. The crimp-bends have some advantages, but are a lot of work to set up for tubes with vertical pleats.
These test folds are a return to simpler pleats, testing how easily I can fold a series of pleats along the length of a tube. The first one is a test of changing the pleat axis along the length of the model, creating a slight helical twist.
Helical pleated tubeHelical pleated tube
The second keeps the same axis but changes in width along the length of the tube.
As a follow-up to my recent test fold of diagonal shifts in square tubes, this test fold joins one square tube with one circular (or actually 16-sided) tube.
Square/circle shifted twist
I’ve played with twists that join tubes of different shapes before, and this design extends that to a shifted twist. As in the previous test fold, the center of the twist relies on the flexibility and stretch in the paper to actually collapse correctly.
I’ve played before with some mixed media designs, combining origami with ceramics. This piece is a first attempt at combining origami with knitting.
Wavy origami and knit paired boxes
The wavy form is similar to a shape I’ve used in a few previous designs, especially my wavy split bowl. This form is folded from a rectangle, with pleats that release near the top of the form to create the waves.
Wavy origami and knit paired boxes – origami piece
The knit piece is mostly a simple seed stitch with increases to create the waves, plus a bit of ribbing to create the fold points on the corners. Similar to my ceramics pieces, I made the knit piece first because the dimensions are a bit more challenging to control as precisely. The number of stitches I added in each wave was planned to match the proportions of each pleat in the origami form, which is why the shapes came out so similar.
Wavy origami and knit paired boxes – knit piece
One of the new challenges of this piece was figuring out how to stiffen the knit form with something that soaked into the yarn and didn’t show on the surface. It turns out that a couple coats of methylcellulose (well know to many origamists for making paper crisp and wet-foldable) works fairly well, along with some wire to hold the shape in place while it dries.
A few more views of the two pieces together:
Wavy origami and knit paired boxes – top viewWavy origami and knit paired boxes – standing
I’ve played a bit before with twists in non-round tubes and using them in models. These test folds are my first attempt to combine those with my diagonal shifts, giving two square tubes that are offset from each other. The offsets of the two square tubes are the same in both test models.
Square shifted twists 1 and 2
In both versions (as in my previous tests), the points on each face of the square tube all fall along a parabola. Because of the offset between the tubes, the vertex of the parabola is aligned with the focus of the twist (the point at which the paper converges).
Square shifted twist 1
In the first version, I tried a simpler version of the math that places the focus of the twist at the same height as the vertex of the higher parabolas. In this version, the shortest segments of the twist go through the focus essentially horizontally, giving some vertical separation between the two tubes.
Square shifted twist 1Square shifted twist 1
In the second version, the focus is shifted down to eliminate that vertical gap, or at least greatly reduce it. This gives something that looks a lot more like the twists I used in my diagonal shift series.
This piece is a continuation of my series of curved-neck vases. The neck is a series of crimp bends to create the curve. This is from a couple years ago and spent most of a year at the Science Museum Oklahoma, but I didn’t get it posted then.
Curved-neck vase 3
I like the look of these forms and how much more organic they are than many of my more purely geometric designs. Unfortunately, the series of crimp-folds along the neck is such a pain to fold that I’m not in a hurry to add any more to the series.
Continuing from my recent textural study vases, another pair of vases. The first has three inset bands tilted at different angles along different axes. As always, I painted the paper before folding it, so the locations of the bands had to be planned in advance.
Textural study vase 3
The second is a larger deviation from the base vase shape, with several distinct steps between vertical columns.
Textural study vase 4
Here are the three painted vases in the series together, showing the common basic shape with differences in texture and pattern.
After a long absence, a few relatively simple vases exploring texture in folds and paint. I chose to use the same basic shape for these two vases so I could play with these effects.
Textural Study Vases 1 and 2
The first vase is folded from unpainted Elephant Hide paper. The neck has 15 pleats, which is just far enough from my normal 16 pleats to make the dimensions a bit annoying to work with. The 15 pleats allow me to make the base a regular pentagon, and the large unfolded panels curve enough to transition smoothly from 15 sides to five.
Textural Study Vase 1
The second vase is painted with a brushed texture similar to things I’ve used quite a few times before. Each of the 16 sides has a raised flange with several waves. The construction is very similar to a large vase I folded several years ago (see crease pattern), except for the added waves.
This vase is part of my series of geometrically distorted vases, incorporating a tilt of the main axis of the vase. This vase is similar to one of my recent models, and since that model I’ve figured out how to adapt the curved portions of the vase to keep the horizontal planes all closer to exactly horizontal. The shift in the middle uses the same pattern as my downhill diagonal shifts, with the angle chosen to match the tilt of the vase.
This model is the second in my series of curved-neck vases. These models use the same geometric crimp-bends that I’ve been using my geometrically distorted vases, but the series of bends creates the illusion of a curve. The series of bends is a lot of work to fold, but I like how this model has a different feel from the more strictly geometric pieces I’ve done for a long time.
This model builds on my recent offset bowl, where the model is based on a tilted cylinder. Here, I added curved folds and painted lines to the tilted cylinder, fitting it into my geometrically distorted vase series. The central bend is similar to my previous designs, and the top and bottom planes are also defined by sine waves to transition between the tilted cylinder and flat planes.
