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Here are three more animals from Kunihiko Kasahara's book, Origami Made Easy. All were folded using 15cm Muji kami paper. The fox was folded from a single sheet, whilst Nessie and the Giant Panda used two sheets each. I'm still paddling in the shallows here, but at least I now know (thanks to some advice from my photographer wife) about putting some draping material behind the figures! I also know to use ambient light and a tripod, rather than flash, since flash tends to wash out detail. Only a few more figures left to try in Origami Made Easy, and then I'll be moving on to Kasahara's Origami Omnibus, which I believe includes a few more intermediate-level figures. Hope my fingers are up to it! Incidentally, one small improvement in my folding technique this time, came from an Origami FAQ I found via Google, which made me realise I'd been concentrating on moving points to points, rather than focussing on the crease line itself. This small adjustment in emphasis does seem to have improved my accuracy a bit. The same FAQ also recommended only sharpening creases when you reach a "resting point", rather than at each intermediate step in a folding diagram. My lack of confidence as a folder (from inexperience) still makes me want to "nail" each step in a diagram before moving to the next, to the point where I'm nearly wearing down the back of my left thumbnail, but I'm trying to resist the temptation to make every crease knife-sharp before moving to the next sub-step! Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures!
For some reason, Blogger only let me upload 5 images at a time, so here are the rest of them.
I first encountered Origami in my early teens, when I found, in the local library, a copy of Samuel Randlett's "The Art Of Origami". I was pretty impatient (and therefore clumsy) back then, at the start of the 70s, and I had to cut my own squares from scrap paper, but I was fascinated by the assorted bases and the boundless variety of shapes that sprang forth from them. Or as far as my cack-handed fumblings could approximate, anyway.
Like most teenage enthusiasms, the Origami fad waned, and I forgot all about it. Until recently, when I found myself idly flexing a square of paper from the telephone message block. I googled "Randlett", and there was the book. I tried "Origami", and discovered the British Origami Society, and a page where the American Origami fans had voted on their favourite Origami books. Selecting a few of those tagged as suitable for beginners, I ordered a few from Amazon, along with a pack of Origami paper.
As soon as I opened the parcel, the fascination came flooding back. More patient this time, the results were even more satisfying, and using proper Origami "Kami" paper gave them a smarter appearance, too. So I worked my way steadily through Montroll's "Easy Origami" and Sakata's "Origami", which helped me develop some basic familiarity and start to improve my dexterity.
At this point, I decided to join the British Origami Society, and availed myself of their mail order supplies service. Armed with several packs of square paper, I embarked on the next book, a bit more challenging: Kasahara's "Origami Made Easy". This contains some interesting models, some of which I botched badly, and some of which came out, well, not too badly. I've learned that insect legs are one of my major betes noir; the combination of very acute angles and trying to reverse-fold spindly legs which are many paper-layers thick, manages to make me feel like I've ten thumbs, none of which work very well! Neatness and accuracy are clearly something I must continue to work on. Meanwhile, here are a few of my efforts so far from Kasahara's book.
