This time of coronavirus has meant that I have received very few orders for my newspaper weaves during this year. But well, there is always a silver lining - I was able to work on my weaves, experiment with colours, try out new weaving techniques... 

Let me assure you, trying to achieve a certain level of mastery in anything is difficult. While perfection is impossible to achieve - practice definitely does not make perfect, but it sure does make one better - striving towards that perfection, for me, is key to success. As far as my weaving goes, this means a lot of hours, plenty of effort and boat loads of experiments! 

So time of quarantine has been that opportunity for me to better my work. I have done a ton of reading (a lot of sites in other languages, so thank you, Google Translate!!), a whole bunch of research, hours of video-watching, many, many experiments with colours, techniques, designs and rolling so many newspaper tubes that I can probably do it blind-folded now! 

And the result? Now I can say that my work has definitely improved. In the next few months I will be able to show that on my blog too. And hopefully, I would love to share some of my learning and if you are interested in paper weaving, I am sure that would benefit you.

Coming to this big box - this is one of the biggest projects I have had the pleasure to work on. The client wanted something to store toys in, something in pleasing pastel colours and something with a lid. She also wanted decoupage. That was all the requirements. And what a pleasure it has been! 

I worked based on the patterns on the decoupage tissue - roses in pale peach. So my chosen colours were peach and white. This project involved a loooot of tube-rolling!! 😅😅 I started with a cardboard base, with decoupage done on that cardboard. The weaving was pretty straight-forward - the lower half was an experiment in random combinations of peach and white and the upper half was completely done in white. I absolutely loved the lid, with its little peach knob! Initially I had thought of adding a wooden know, but am quite happy I went with this paper knob instead. 

Decoupage is quite interesting, but I think this will also take a back seat to the actual weaving. I love the way it accentuates the beauty of the box though. 

Overall, a wonderful project and a pleased client 👍😀

 

After the lovely origami that I folded last month, I decided that I wanted to do something in newspaper weaving that is a little big - big enough to contain a fair amount of stuff, rather than the usual, small pieces that I do. 

 

So that is what I did! This box, made of olive green and corn yellow, is the first of these boxes that I decided to weave. The idea was derived from some decoupage tissue, presented to me by my daughter, Little Miss. I am not sure decoupage will look good on small, woven works. Anyway, I have to try it out! But for now, this is what I did. 

The base of the box was cardboard, since I wasn't too keen on weaving such a big bottom! The box measures 8 inches in diameter and the cardboard is 6 inches in diameter. From that, I started my weaving.

Once I started weaving the sides, I wanted to try out some new techniques of weaving. Unfortunately, I don't know of the names! But I guess the pictures provide enough information! 😆

 Once the weaving was done, it was decoupage time. Frankly speaking, I am not too happy with the way this decoupage turned out! I think the bees and the flowers merge a little too much with the weaving! But, all is not lost! I will try this same technique again with a different decoupage paper and hopefully that will come out well!

Model Details:

Model: Leaf Tray

Difficulty Level: Complex

Tutorial (making newspaper tubes): Youtube

 Hmm.. My attempt at making a little woven pumpkin pot! Is that a yay or a nay?? 

Can't say I am very impressed with this 😁 I think the top of the pumpkin should flatten down a lot more. Don't you think so? And I think the lid should be entirely of orange with no green in it. Well, live and learn, folks!! 

Model Details:

Model: Pumpkin Pot

Difficulty Level: Complex

Tutorial (making newspaper tubes): Youtube

 

After folding the long-pending origami whale in my last post, I worked on another of my pending origami - this one is Armin Täubner's origami dragon. 

This very cute dragon (cute and dragon in the same sentence?? Talk about an oxymoron! 😆😅) is folded from a 15-cm square and will take about 20 minutes to complete! It starts with a fish base and builds up on that. The final shaping adds a lot of beauty to this model and I am quite delighted with the way it has turned out! 

Model Details:

Model: Dragon

Creator: Armin Täubner

Book: Kreativ Workshop Origami
 
Author: Armin Täubner
 
Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 6 inch square

Model Size: ~ 4 inches across

Tutorial: Youtube

 

The idea of the "Inktober" art challenge is to improve drawing skills. One of the groups I am a part of (Artrangi United) has taken up this challenge. The participants are provided with a list of prompts - 1 per day for the month of October and are challenged to draw based on the prompt. 

Frankly speaking, I am very bad at drawing/painting etc! So what am I doing with this challenge?? Today's theme was "whale"! And there is this Robert Lang's whale that I have been thinking of folding for a long time now. So, I decided to take up the prompt for the Inktober challenge and finally, finally folding this long pending origami! 

The folding is fairly simple. Using black single-sided paper (15 cms in my case) gave me a nice little killer whale. You might be wondering why I have added all these bells and whistles in the pic?? 😆 That is because the Artrangis have been asked to post there creations on Instagram. And in case you have an Instagram account and wish to follow me, please do so! I would be delighted to have some followers!! 

Model Details:

Model: Whale

Creator: Robert Lang

Book: Origami Under the Sea
 
Author: John Montroll & Robert Lang
 
Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 6 inch square

Model Size: ~4 inches in length 

Tutorial: Youtube

Origamists around the world seem to be putting the quarantine to good use! Instagram and Facebook are rife with origami enthusiasts teaching various models, origami conventions are being organized online and in general, a lot of people are putting their time to good use. 

Once such origami demonstration I happened upon was in Instagram. The author of the model, Fabian Correa was interviewed online and then he demonstrated to the host and to the viewers, how to fold this really cute hummingbird. The entire session was in Spanish, so I did not understand anything that was spoken, but origami is a universal language and the folding was something I understood quite well. It was well demonstrated and folding along wasn't a hardship. 

I used 6 inch origami single-sided paper. The final shaping took some time, but otherwise it was a good, fun origami to fold. 

Model Details:

Model: Hummingbird

Creator: Fabian Correa

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 6 inches

Model Size: ~2 inches across

Link to demonstration: Instagram

My mega Mette Ring project is finally completed! Whew!! After working on and off for nearly a year, I finally completed it! 

And I am absolutely thrilled by how well it has come through. I had made a total of 20 rings which were linked together to form a slinky. Finally inserted the last module into the first, forming a ring of ring of Mette rings. 

Absolutely love the colours that were chosen by Little Miss. Apparently, I am incapable of even choosing the rainbow colours for these rings 😄😄 But as always, she chose impeccably, the perfect colours that show a good gradation of colour.

While this has been a tiring bit of work, I think the final outcome would give anyone, absolute satisfaction! But not to be forgotten, there are 360 modules to be folded. Which makes this the biggest origami work that I have ever attempted!!

Model Details:

Model: Mette's Ring

Creator: Mette Pederson

Book: Mette Units

Author: Mette Pederson

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 3 inches

Diagram: Mette Units

Modules: 18