Sarah's Origami Pages

Welcome to my Origami pages

I have recently started learning Origami as an exercise for my Masters degree course on cognition and methods of learning.

The idea was to get me to critique my own learning processes and therefore control them. The nett result was an essay and a new found love of paper folding! So I thought I would document my paper folding journey over these few pages, with pictures and links to some of my folding 'experiments'. I hope you enjoy it as much as I am - and please do come back and visit as I add more pages and more demonstrations.

Origami is the ancient Japanese art of paper folding (derived from "ori" meaning "to fold", and "kami", meaning paper). As I did some more investigation into the subject I discovered that there are many different types of origami, like differing dialects of a language, including traditional origami (using a single sheet of paper), modular origami (using multiple sheets of paper), origami sekkei (designing objects using complex mathematics) and action origami (which uses internal mechanisms to move other parts of the model).

Seasons greetings

As it is Christmas I have folded Santa in his sleigh. You can view the instructional How To video here.

This was the particular field of origami that I chose to focus on and I selected an Origami example called the Lizard. It is a modern example using 13 sheets of paper folded to create a jointed (and moveable) lizard.

Click here to view the articulation.

Learning Origami

The first thing I have learned is that good paper is vital! I brought some lovely examples at the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate at the end of November. I used it to make the Origami boxes and the Origami butterfly and it was a joy to have such beautiful paper. I will add a link to the website when I find it again.

An Origami Butterfly

Origami Nun with How to instruction video here

Origami gift box with How to instruction video here (and for the divider here)

I thought that I would try a little miniature work to go with my interest in dollshouses. I started with working the Origami fish 1/4 size (which was tough as you can see):

A bit ropey - but not too bad for a first attempt!

And then I tried the Origami gift boxes, getting smaller and smaller each time. The forth one is about as small as I could get, and it had to be folded with tweezers to finish it off.

I am pleased with the results and I enjoyed the challenge!

Here is my newest fold - the Origami Rustic Pig. You can view folding instructions here:

Videos in waiting:

The Crane

The Elephant