New Work

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.

The second is a larger deviation from the base vase shape, with several distinct steps between vertical columns.

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.

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.

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.

Inspired by my diagonal shift pieces, this model is a test piece incorporating several diagonal planes. The base, central plane, and top edge are all defined by sine waves. Unlike my previous models, these sine waves create three planes parallel to the table but tilt the central axis of the bowl. This is fairly straightforward to do with all straight folds, and I’m exploring whether this concept can be used with curved folds in my more complex diagonal shift designs.

As usual, I designed an ornament this year, similar to my designs the past several years. The paper is hand-painted with several layers of watered-down acrylic paint, which gives a texture a lot like watercolors. It doesn’t show much in the photo, but there’s a thin layer of silver paint on top that gives it a hint of sparkle.

This vase builds on my recent exploration of twists in non-cylindrical tubes. The central twist in this model is a 16-sided twist in a square tube. Like in my previous test fold, the twist naturally creates segments of parabolas on each face of the square tube. I repeated the parabolic shape several times to create the wavy painted pattern with a color gradient.

I bought this marbled paper several months ago because the colors and shapes within the marbling reminded me of a peacock. This vase has a fairly simple shape, also inspired by a peacock. This is a softer paper than I’m used to folding, even after being treated with methylcellulose, but it works for forms of this level of complexity.

This piece builds on my helix from several months ago. The neck of the vase uses a series of crimp-bends at different angles. The crimp-bends are pretty labor-intensive to fold, but it creates an interesting effect. Here’s a second view to show the curvature of the neck more clearly: