Origami Ducky

The next origami design I will be crafting today will still come out of the second book I used, "Origami Farm Animals" by Lisa Miles. While this book is a child reading level, the origami (to me at least) might as well be rocket science. In the beginning I had thought that maybe origami would be a fun little craft or hobby I could have, but all this has done is make me hate origami for my lack of skill in it. The sad thing about this is that this simple form of art has been around so long and mastered by many, but I still struggle to make basic folds. The author just makes me feel worse about how many people are good at origami by saying "Origami has been popular in Japan for hundreds of years and is now loved all around the world" (Miles, 4). This basically means anyone can do it, except me.

Today I will be crafting an origami duck, which is ranked by the book as an easy thing to create. Of course, this ranking means absolutely nothing to me as I am trash at origami. On that note, let's get started.

STEPS

Step 1: The first thing you want to do in creating a duck is to make a kite fold. this is no one step fold however. The instructions on this fold at the beginning of the book include a multitude of basic folds in order to create this one base fold, mostly consisting of valley folds (Miles, 6). This is what the instructed kite fold should look like.


Step 2: The next step is to valley fold the top corners in to meet the center crease. This looks like it jumped a few steps ahead because the last picture was displaying the valley folds unfolded. In reality, they are only one step apart.


Step 3: The third step is to take both flaps and fold them in towards the center fold. This creates the shape of the body of the duck. The next steps were much more difficult for me.


Step 4: The fourth step is to create what will eventually be the tail of the duck. This step was confusing for me because the inside reverse fold is not well captured in pictures, so it took me multiple tries to complete. You do this to both sides so that there is now both a head and a tail.


Step 5: This is basically the last real step. Another inside reverse fold is applied here to one of the sides to create the beak of the duck. Mine came out weird as the neck is too short, making the body of the duck seem extremely large. Then, add a black dot to the headed side to represent eyes.


On a scale of quality, I would say this is smack dab in the middle between the origami pig and the origami candy cane. This still looks pretty bad, but not nearly as bad as the train wreck of the origami candy cane. This week, I would like to know what all of you guys think or origami as a whole? Would you personally consider this as an art form? Why or why not?

 Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading my blog.


Miles, Lisa. Origami Farm Animals. New York, New York: Gareth Stevens Publishing, 2014. Print.

Origami Candy Cane

For my blog, I will be writing about origami. Origami is something that I've never done, and have never really thought of as something to do in free time, but to each their own. Anyways, origami is the art of folding paper, which truth be told, sounds like THE most boring thing of all time, but despite the definition, the results seem cool. The book that I will be using is called 'Jumbo Christmas Origami Paper Pack' by Gavin Motnyk, which I had not found out was not actually a book until it was too late. However, the book does have a few basic instructions for holiday themed origami, so I guess I'll just live with it for now.

When describing the necessary base folds of origami, the book says "Learning to fold these base folds is not the most exciting part of origami. They are, however, easy to do, and will help you with your technique." (Motnyk 15). So, the author did put an emphasis on getting these base folds down, but me being dumb and impatient, decided to just jump right in to the first project. Since this was the first time I have ever done origami, I decided to start off with what the holiday themed book put first. A candy cane. Seems simple right? It's pretty much just a stick with a curve at the end, in a red and white pattern. How hard could it be? 

Very hard apparently.

Step 1: Valley fold in half. A valley fold is just a vertical or horizontal fold down the middle.

Step 2: Valley fold in half.

Step 3-6: Valley fold then unfold

Step 7: Valley fold then unfold.

Step 9: Repeat steps 1 through 7 four additional times to complete 4 additional piece.

Step 10: Connect the 5 pieces by inserting one into another as shown and apply glue.

Step 11: Make valley folds. 

Step 12: Valley fold in half.

Step 13: Inside reverse fold, rotate.

Step 14: Outside reverse fold, completed candy cane.

:(

The author stresses that technique and folding with care can create clean folds and to not be frustrated with first attempts (Motnyk 5). Contrary to the author's words and advice towards origami, this project frustrated me because I have never been so trash at something before, but I know this isn't the end, and I have room and time to improve.

I hope you guys cringed just as much as I did when looking through this struggle of a first attempt at origami. I am scared to hear feedback on my work because I know it's straight horrible, but I am willing to listen to literally anyone on improving my origami.  Do you think that origami is a useful hobby that can be applied elsewhere, or just a unnecessarily complex way of folding paper to make pointless sculptures?

Let me know in the comments below.

Motnyk, Gavin. Jumbo Christmas Origami Paper Pack. New York, New York: Sterling Innovation, 2014. Print.