"like paper airplanes filling the sky / and you just have to find your own"

[larryhammer]

An interim origami report, as I make fitful progress on the scaled koi. Said fitful progress being partly because I keep getting distracted by Oo! Cool! Papers!

Because, well. Cool papers.

For starters, meet the checkerbear and his friend the maplebison. Click to embiggen:



I adore the checkerbear. Both are wet-folded from the same chiyogami washi pack as made the metabunny.

And then there's this kasane washi I got as a gift:



The photo doesn't bring it out (though you can sorta see it at the largest size), but the pattern is not printed but rather a second layer of colored fibers (I haven't translated enough of the furiganaless package to find out from what) which was then pushed into this pattern while still wet. Which is intriguing enough visually, but also a tactile delight -- it especially takes well to wet-folding:



Also, I managed to find some yuzen ("brocade") washi that's 15cm square (usually it's 10cm or 7.5cm squares), which includes the most pretty piece of paper I've ever met:



Yes, that's gold ink. I have no idea what I'm going to make with this. I'm almost afraid to make anything, which means I probably should anyway.

Any suggestions?

---L.

Comments

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

That pretty gold-ink paper? Use it for bookbinding. It would make lovely endpapers for a volume of your translated poetry.

[artemisgrey.livejournal.com]

I think it would look lovely as anything. But if you're thinking of folding it, can you make a chrysanthemum? All of those rich colors and the gilt gold, it would be meditatively hypnotic...

[larryhammer]

Hrm. I have only the one sheet (each sheet in a packet is unique), so book would have to be 3" wide at the most. Putting it on the outer covers instead, with some bookcloth for the binding might get another half-inch, depending on how much bookcloth is used. Or maybe just on the front cover ...

---L.

[larryhammer]

All the mum models I knew of were multi-sheet, but poking about I see a couple single-sheets. I'd have to experiment with how this type of paper plays with it ...

---L.

[harvestar.livejournal.com]

oh, the checkered bear is most adorable!!!

[daedala.livejournal.com]

I love the kasane dinosaur!

[alpha-strike.livejournal.com]

The paper is gorgeous! The brontosaurus and bison are awfully cool, too. Not that the bears aren't, mind you, I just like them better.

[larryhammer]

The bison is actually kinda hard -- not that the folds are complicated, but getting the proportions and shape of the head to come out is tricky. That one is the best I've managed, but I'm not quite satisfied with it.

---L.

[larryhammer]

*♥ checkerbear*

[larryhammer]

It is both an easy and graceful model -- an excellent design.

---L.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

That gold-ink paper says some kind of fish to me, actually, given the way fish can have patterned splotches-- if you have a koi model that isn't amazingly difficult it would look realistic-but-prettier.

[alpha-strike.livejournal.com]

My favorite is still your giraffe. One you folded five or six years ago still lives on my desk. He isn't much of an editor (because he only pretends to read) but I love him all the same.

[larryhammer]

There's Lang's koi, done without scales ...

[larryhammer]

That was a dollar bill one, right?

[alpha-strike.livejournal.com]

No; yellow paper the color of Post-it notes. He's about 4 1/2" tall, and that's a good thing. If he were any shorter, he wouldn't be able to drink from my coffee cup and the poor thing would *never* wake up in the morning.

ETA: This actually belongs up there...

[larryhammer]

Ah -- now I remember it.

---L.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

No suggestions, but my old tip: Save good wrapping paper for origami. I once got some pressed foil wraps — some was gold, some was silver — that resulted in little bunnies that were downright jewel-like and got many comments.

[larryhammer]

We do -- for origami and bookbinding. But thanks.

(Hmm -- that silver snowflake stuff would indeed work for bunnies ... )

---L.

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

Are you crafty enough to be able to look at something and know how to fold it? Because I'd love to know how to fold a Quaq Quao (http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/hs323.snc4/41574_33584357747_1918197_n.jpg) origami duck...

[larryhammer]

At a guess, I think it's multiple pieces of (possibly non-square) card-stock. Certainly the little quacker is animated out of mutiple pieces -- I suspect the static model is as well.

I'd be surprised if a little dedicated googledelving didn't fossick up instructions, once you dig past all the people going "omg animated origami!"

---L.