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Difficulty: Intermediate 
My "Intermediate Origami" course focuses mainly on flowers and marine life, which are often very complicated and difficult to fold. But I needed a relatively easy fold that fit into one of those two categories to start with - something not too terribly difficult, but also not for absolute beginners, just to get the ball rolling. Significantly easier than the shark, dolphin, walrus, or turtle, my solution was the sperm whale. All origami projects are open to personalization and experimentation, but the sperm whale is particularly so. Following the directions will produce this:   But, of course, that's just one way. Here are many others. Notice the difference (some subtle, some not so subtle) between these folds, mostly on the tail.  Most of these folds are quite small in stature, the result of using 6" x 6" paper ...
... but I've always wanted to try substantially larger paper. And what better project to do so than a whale? Using an old CT Transit brochure, I was able to start with an 18" x 18" paper, thus creating a product thrice as large:    Difficulty: Hard/Intermediate
Like the shark, the walrus is categorized as "hard/intermediate" due to instruction extrapolation (taking marked directions from one flap and applying those same folds to another unmarked flap) and the number of minute folds (too small to indicate on the paper) required to make a realistic product. Particularly after folds 7 and 8, minor adjustments are required but there is no good way to show it on the instruction sheet. Instead, common sense, trial and error, experience, and a higher difficulty rating will have to suffice. Following the directions exactly will produce this:  But comparing this to the completed patterns below, you will notice many small discrepancies: 1. the color and curvature of the tusks, 2. the crown of the head has been rounded and often glued together, 3. the flippers and lower shoulders are often folded an extra time or rounded, 4. I had to inset a penny into the posterior most of these walruses (walri?) to keep the animal's balance back, otherwise they tend to fall forwards onto their heads. These and other modifications are strongly encouraged.     I had to have at least one psychedelic walrus, for fairly obvious reasons. (Also notice the flippers have been folded an extra time.)   The trillium is nearly identical to the monja blanca, the only difference being that two monja blancas are combined to produce the trillium. This fold is particularly effective when two different colors are used. Difficulty: Intermediate
The monja blanca (old white nun) is the national flower of Guatemala. (I have taken liberties with the coloration.) It requires a triangular starting shape, which may either be printed and cut out from the instructional sheet below, or folded and cut using the triangle base. Difficulty: Intermediate
Difficulty: Intermediate
As promised in the directions, here is an animation illustrating the tricky fold that thins the flame of the candle. 
And here's the finished product.
Difficulty: Easy/Intermediate
        Perhaps my favorite thing about this particular fold is the amount of experimentation that can be done to produce slightly different results. Of course, every fold pattern can be experimented with, but this one in particular is conducive to many such experiments. For example, on this one I folded the tips down to give the petals a rounder tip.  And on this one I folded the tip at the center of the flower down to create a star.  Here's the same thing, but with a much bigger center star.  And this one actually has three stars in the center (although the middle one is so small that it's more of a nub than a star).  Difficulty: Intermediate (for inferences to be made by the folder)
Similar to the cube (aka waterbomb), once the folding is complete for this pattern, you must inflate it by blowing into it. Inflate partially to produce a strawberry...
... or inflate fully to produce a tomato. 
Difficulty: Intermediate
  Here's a ... less than aesthetically pleasing version, worth showing to illustrate that two pieces of origami paper can be folded together to produce a multi-patterned flower box.  And here's a slightly more elegant looking product, but since it's a single sheet of paper, notice that only part is colored while the other part is blank white.  Difficulty: Intermediate
 To make the frog "jump", apply pressure to the frog's posterior with a finger...  ... and suddenly release.      |
Origami Blog
My 8 March 2013 blog about origami prompted me to launch a second blog, one dedicated solely to origami. This way, as I complete instructional sheets, I can post them directly to this blog and it will not interfere with my Beatles blog. Categories
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