Origami For Kids

  This turns out to be a very popular sculpture, with an appeal to horse lovers everywhere, both inside and outside the origami world. I'm often asked often how I came up with it. The answer is basically what you would expect. I have several ‘full horse’ models that I'm still tinkering with (have been since 1989....). On one,  the ears were unsatisfactory; so, in 2004 while out at a fast-food shop I did a blow-up-study , focusing only on the head.  That left excess paper, which got folded out of the way in overlapping flaps.  The results—a little like barn or stable doors with the head peeking out—pleased me; and so, a New Model .  Recently (2011), prompted by a fan who was enthused by just this shape, I picked the  model up again and put much improved eyes & ears on it.   Now, the above is easy enough to say. But it also happens that during those seven years of gestation, the thinking in origami has progressed, and mine has along with it. 1. For ...

  I'm writing this post on the occasion of the huge equestrian trade fair going on this week in Birmingham in the UK. A few Horse-Heads of mine are on display there, very much like these: "Horse Heads" , by Saadya, Feb 2012. Uncut sheets of Canson watercolor paper are pre-inked on one side and folded while wet. These are origami sculptures : that is, they obey the rules of the new game of origami (start from a single sheet, and make your shape entirely by folding, without cutting), while trying to stay true also to requirements of traditional sculpture (an older game with a lot more rules...) The display at the fair is meant to draw attention to a neat invention by Josephine Unsworth--about which, more below. HORSE EXHIBITION You visitors to the Birmingham Fair (and my regular readers too) might like to know that I am putting together a museum exhibition devoted entirely to horses and equestrian subjects. Besides my own things there will be work in it by some of the...

Starting out, I did not intend this to be a self-portrait. But I'm told now that this is not a conclusion I can exactly avoid.... You be the judge. Anyway. So, I figured out how to do eyeballs properly from origami, and now am going crazy putting eyes on everything. Note the magnets --the lozenge-shaped thingies. I use those on the 3D surface in places where clips can't reach, to hold layers together as the misted paper dries. (The paper is pre-treated with methyl cellulose and a light ink rub, so it stiffens up nicely.) --Anybody else do this? Cheers! Saadya

the first chameleon I've ever seen in the wild in Beersheva, I saw this morning climbing the Etrog tree in my garden a healthy young specimen--- naturally I confronted him with an unfair comparison he was utterly speechless

A few heads showing off some of the latest technology. All are folded from uncut rectangles of paper --grays Canson, greens Fabriano--pretreated with methyl cellulose and a light ink wash, then wet-folded. The beard-nose-mouth is a construction mostly worked out six months ago; the eyebrows and "wheat-sheath" motif I came up with in the last few weeks. Enjoy -S

At last! my little book is now seeing the light of day. Equally parts coffee-table art book, and hands-on, get your fingers twitching model and sculpture-making guide, there's a text, and there's a DVD, covering three of the four main branches of origami that I've been exploring in recent years: FACES ANIMALS CURVES I didn't want this to be just an “instructional manual” (= origami diagrams book) but even so instruction, that is, constructing-guiding-demonstrating-suggesting-directing-cajoling-provoking-leadingbyexample (with lots of hand movements) is very much the essence of this book, because it's very much the essence of origami. So there are diagrams & step-by-step guides in both book and DVD, and there is some fancy talk, but the sculpture images are what's really meant to linger in your mind. I give away probably the two most important secrets for how I make my faces. The DVD shows both basic concepts and one complete project for making a head. The ...

I have the honor of announcing, on behalf of the Japan Museum SieboldHuis , that an exhibition of origami art by Akira Yoshizawa will be held in Leiden, the Netherlands, from April 30 to May 29, 2011. Titled “ Animal Parade . Origami by Akira Yoshizawa ”, the focus will be on animals—as they have that special quality of 'liveliness' that the 'Father of Modern Origami' was noted for. There will be over 200 sculptures in various postures and groupings, from periods spanning the Master's career. These "range from gorillas and seahorses to a dinosaur and a horse of exceptional height", as per the exhibition website which is now up. Lectures and hands-on workshops by origami luminaries (as well as by Yours Truly) are scheduled for the weekend of May 7-8 . This will be the largest-scale showing of Akira Yoshizawa's pioneering work in any setting outside of Japan, since the 1950s. The last such museum exhibit at this scale in the West was also the first one:...