I've decided the take what I will call the "Jenna Marbles" approach to posting: as long as it's up sometime on Thursday, its still counts as my scheduled Thursday post ;) Or I hear it also goes by the procrastination method as well.



Well, back to the origami. Today is an example of all the wonderful traits that develop from folding origami. In my experience the benefits of origami are increased patience, devotion to a project for hours, sharpened sensitivity to the fragile paper and an increased outlet for creativity. All of these traits can be seen in the viking ship modeled today--or as I like to call it, the "dragon boat"! This model was diagrammed and designed by Robert Lang and can be found in his book, pictured above.


I first folded this design over a month ago on my usual experimental paper: an 8.5in square made from standard printer paper. By the end it had turned out quite small (which made it very cute), but still the folds were not near as precise as I wished them to be.





Just over a week ago it was my birthday, and as I was clearing out the wrapping paper and cards I decided to save a particularly large unwrinkled and barely creased piece of wrapping paper. I thought maybe down the road I would have a clever origami use for it. And also it was a shame to throw such a nice piece of paper away :)

 Then it occurred to me that the large rectangular size would be great for this model because of the irregular starting shape-- 1:4.6667. or 4 and 2/3 if you prefer the more accurate version (which I do). The only problem with such a large piece of paper was it was a little stiff and ripped easily on the crease lines, which is probably a general fault of nice, sturdy wrapping paper.


Anyhow, I persevered to create this masterpiece, which while still not perfect, was an improvement and a good experiment. Even the colors turned out well! And then I couldn't help taking a photo or two of the dragon boat family. The little one looks so cute in comparison. And it makes for a good story of perseverance in origami. If it doesn't go well the first time, take break and come back to it with fresh eyes, you'll be amazed at the difference a lil' breather can make!

Some things I have been folding recently:



a regal lion by Nicolás G Henríquez,





the card players by Eugeny Fridrikh, (pdf can be found on this website)






and a biplane from Robert Lang's The Complete Book of Origami.



The biplane is a truly great model. I folded my model from a square made from an 8.5 x 11 in piece of printer paper. I wasn't sure how my first attempt would turn out, but I was really impressed with the end result.



Just like one the Wright bros would fly!

Hope you're having a good tuesday and a somewhat easy return to the working world.

...with origami letters, that is! The letters you've seen in my previous posts have been folded thanks to the designs of Jo Nakashima. this playlist of almost all the alphabet letters (in caps and lowercase) is a really great go-to resource whenever I want some simple folded paper letters to illustrate a post.





These letters aren't too hard and mostly rely on good management of pleating folds, all clearly demonstrated in the videos. The thing I like best about Jo Nakashima's videos is the little diagram in the corner for each step that illustrates what he is about to do. This makes it very easy to get the placement of the folds correct.




If you're looking for a simple, fun origami project to do, look no further! You can spell out your name like I did...or a caption of a new origami model you've made...or anything really! have fun :)

This next set of flowers was inspired by a page I saw in a book at the library. A traditional iris was next to irises with three, five and six petals that had been folded from an equilateral triangle, a pentagon and a hexagon. This alteration is so simple, really. all you have to do is fold the equivalent of a square, or preliminary, base from these other geometric shapes and proceed normally from there with a few additional petal flaps (or one less).

Flowers are one of my favorite origami models to fold. There are so many variations--just in roses alone!


Of course the Kawasaki rose is a classic, but the variations on that theme are just as fun.


For the variations on a classics, I folded a QT rose from this old faithful origami website,