My daughter, Little Miss, has recently become very keen on recycling and reusing whatever she can. So when I was recently asked to make a few origami lotuses, she came up with the idea of making literary lotuses! And we are both delighted with the way the lotuses turned out. We initially tried a complete literary lotus - that is, the flower and the leaves were an old book paper. But our second attempt - book paper lotus with green copy paper leaves were more to our liking.

One thing I did find was that, the book paper is much thinner than the copy paper - which meant pulling out the petals had to be done with more care, else we risk tearing the paper. And since the paper was thinner, the literary lotus turned out a little smaller than the one made entirely from copy paper.

Model Details:

Model: Lotus

Origin: Traditional

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Rectangle

Paper Size: 3 inches * 5.2 inches

Model Size: ~4 inches

Modules: 12

Tutorial: Youtube 

This month's theme at the Origami Society of Madras is a little different from usual. This month, we are working on a theme author instead of a theme object. And the author we have voted for is the grand-master of origami - Akira Yoshizawa.

The beauty of Akira Yoshizawa's models lie in the simple, elegant lines of his fold. His genius is evident in the way he captures an animal or an insect with the fewest folds possible! Ofcourse, there are a number of complex models to his name but his simple ones are the ones that capture the attention of even a beginner origamist.

His most popular model is the butterfly. I love this butterfly. When I first started teaching my Little Miss some basic origami, this was among the first models I taught her. And she became quite famous in her class, because she could fold a butterfly while most of her classmates folded only boats :) And inspite of the butterfly being an easy model to fold, it still looks amazingly like a butterfly! No wonder Akira Yoshizawa is credited as an origami grand master!

So today, what I folded was the origami shrimp from his book "Origami Museum Animals". Though the model is called a lobster, I think it resembles the shrimp more than it resembles the lobster. Again, with the fewest of folds, the grand-master has beautifully helped me fold a couple of cute little shrimps! Each shrimp is folded from a triangle formed by cutting along the diagonal of a square. In the notes, he has said that if the paper is thin enough, we can fold the square along its diagonal and then proceed with the shrimp, but I preferred folding it from a triangle. It helps that we can fold 2 shrimps from a single square which is what I did.

Model Details:

Model: Shrimp / Lobster

Creator: Akira Yoshizawa

Book: Origami Museum Animals
 
Author: Akira Yoshizawa
 
Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Triangle

Paper Size: 9.5 inch square cut along the diagonal

Model Size: The body measures ~ 3.5 inches and the antennae measure ~ 3.25 inches

The kusudama spiral, which looks to me to be less of a kusudama and more of a modular design, is created by Irina Krivyakina. The design is very similar to Tomoko Fuse's spiral origami.

In this design, the 6 sides of the cube are first assembled individually and then put together using connecting units. Each side of the cube is made up of 4 units which are folded together to form the spiral. A total of 24 units are required for the cube faces. The connecting unit is basically a bird base. 12 such units are required for assembling the cube.

3 inch squares are the perfect size for making the cube. I would not suggest a single-sided paper for the units used for assembling the cube. When using single-sided paper, while forming the spiral, I discovered to my dismay, that however I folded it, a little bit of the white was visible at the corners of the spirals. And it was very obviously seen in the completed cube :(

Model Details:

Model: Kusudama Spiral

Creator: Irina Krivyakina

Difficulty Level: High Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 3 inches

Model Size: ~4 inches

Modules: 36

Photo Tutorial: Stranamasterov

Tutorial: Youtube

I am not sure of the creator of these origami pleated boxes. My guess would of course, be Tomoko Fuse. But I am not able to find any reference to the box in any of her books. Unfortunately I do not remember where I learnt to fold this either. And I do not remember the name of the box either. Since it has got a whole bunch of pleats, I just call it the pleated box. So, not knowing any of these details, I have had little success in finding out the creator. But for now, I am tagging it as Tomoko Fuse.

The box can be made from a variety of paper. I have tried mine with wrapper paper, hand made paper, origami paper, printer paper and it turned out well in all of them. The one made from origami paper (the variations-in-blue one) is my favourite. I tried it out in a variety of sizes too. From 5 inch squares to 2 inch squares. All look fantastic I think :)

Model Details:

Model: Pleated Box 

Creator: Tomoko Fuse

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Modules: 4 for the base and 4 for the lid

The truncated icosahedron is another of Tomoko Fuse's modular creations. This is from her book Unit Polyhedron Origami. The model is fairly easy to do. It rather reminds me the origami football I had folded nearly a year back!

The model is made of a combination of hexagonal flat units and connecting units that connect the hexagonal units. Usually modular units have a pocket and a tab - each tab fits into its adjacent unit. But in these models, the hexagonal shapes have 3 pockets and no tabs. So the connecting units fit into the pockets of adjacent hexagons and hold the model together.

I like the little windows in the model as well :) Also, though the backs of the hexagons can be seen through the windows, the reverse side of the paper is not seen in the completed unit. So single-sided paper works perfectly well. I had used 80 gsm paper which turned out to be great for this model. The completed truncated icosahedron is sturdy - so sturdy, in fact, that my brother suggested we use it as a football! 😮

Model Details:

Model: Truncated Icosahedron

Creator: Tomoko Fuse

Book: Unit Polyhedron Origami
 
Author: Tomoko Fuse
 
Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 3.5 inches for the hexagons; 1.75 inches for the connectors

Model Size: ~5 inches in diameter

Modules: 50

The rabbit by Stephen O'Hanlon is another easy rabbit to do. And I found it a lot more realistic than the traditional rabbit. Love the super-long ears of these rabbits!

It takes very little time to complete - about 10 minutes or so. So I think it will also make a great kids project.

Model Details:

Model: Rabbit 

Creator: Stephen O'Hanlon

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 6 inches

Model Size: 3.25 inches in height and 2.5 inches across

Diagram: Fishgoth.com

Tutorial: Youtube 

The traditional origami rabbit is pretty easy to make and there are plenty of tutorials out there to help out. I have been trying out other rabbits as well, and am amazed at the number of origami rabbits there are - everything from the super simple to the super complex! I think I can make these every day for a month and still have pending designs!

Model Details:

Model: Rabbit 

Origin: Traditional

Difficulty Level: Simple

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 3 inches

Model Size: ~2 inches in height and 1.5 inches across

Tutorial: Youtube