Looking into Origami

After Sweeney's workshop, I decided to look at Origami, the art of paper folding, because like what Sweeney was teaching us, it's all about using one sheet of paper and manipulating it. 


I used this website: http://www.origami-fun.com/ to start creating simple structures as I had never really done origami before. The instructions were really helpful, and it was a lot of fun! I actually spent a good couple of hours making animals and flowers mostly. 


These were my attempts: 

Piggy

Jumping Frog

Pelican

Gift Bow

Heart

Butterfly

Lily

Flower

Tulip

Lotus

I managed to do a lot of the structures on the website, the instructions were simple and easy to follow which helped a lot, also with trickier bits there was a video tutorial on some! Which helped even more to actually see how its meant to be done. However I tried to do the rose, but I found this one IMPOSSIBLE! (http://www.origami-fun.com/origami-rose.html) 

It may have been because the paper I was using was too thick? But I'm no origami expert... 

I enjoyed making these structures, they also inspired me for the project as a whole and made me realise just how much you can achieve with a simple sheet of paper. 

Richard Sweeney's Work

After meeting Sweeney I decided to look him up a bit more and see other work he's done. He taught us simple techniques in our first workshop, making something pretty amazing out of one sheet of paper in a matter of minutes, by simply cutting and folding. 


So here are a few examples of his work:

They all seem to have such organic and natural forms, the curves and waves emphasise this a lot! So I started to brainstorm organic things and different forms for my own work. I think the biggest thing I take away from looking into his work is that simplicity is sometimes what creates the most amazing things, and it helps to be photographed well!

Richard Sweenys Paper Workshop 1

This was the first of my attempts with paper sculptor. There was a mix of different techniques, cutting folding, and bending, just trying them all out really. I was quite pleased with it as a first attempt though!

These designs were aimed at trying not to cut the paper at all to create the shapes. However to keep the shape secured I needed to cut into the paper to create a tab. I like this design as resembled flowers. 

 

From these experiments you can see they follow a similar pattern and style to the first attempt. Quite curvy and folded rather than sharp edges and folds. 

   

It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, but interesting and challenging too! There was a lot of miserable failed attempts too!