Origami Tessellations

So, after playing around a bit with some “regular tessellations in the Euclidean plane” I thought about making a lamp out of some of them. I found the following photo:

I’m thinking of making it out of some dark wood, and filling the center with some sort of appropriately folded translucent design. I received my copy of Make: magazine (volume 2!) in the mail last week, and there was an article about using Minwax wood hardener to turn cardboard into plastic. I’m tempted to use something like this to completely solidify a folded work, so it’s tear resistant/proof and will be easier to manipulate in a lamp setting.

if I can pull this off it will be pretty nifty, I think. looking forward to seeing how it works out. nothing wrong with branching out into some creative explorations.

of course, let’s hope that the hardening material doesn’t turn the lamp into a firebomb waiting to go off!

hexagonal tiling w/ triangle twists
Originally uploaded by Origomi.

this makes a nice chain style pattern that’s rather pleasing to look at, and really easy to fold. I’m looking to fold some of this out of translucent paper, turn it into plastic (using a minwax product mentioned in Make: magazine issue 2) and build a lamp out of it. hopefully my dad will help me put together the appropriate wood to make it look nice!

look for photos in this space for such an object once it happens…

Update: diagrams for this design can be found on my diagrams page.

origami wave 2
Originally uploaded by nolan.

I believe this is the origami waves folded by schoolkids for some tsunami relief effort. it’s thomas hull’s model, if I recall correctly.

it’s a very nice photo that someone’s taken- when I heard about it I didn’t really think it would look this nice! but it’s very good.

So I’ve been trying to find ways to do some documentation/diagramming of one of my models, to actually get something done. I picked the star twist tessellation, as you can fold a pretty decent one (that’s not really a tessellation, as we’re not repeating it, but let’s not nitpick.)

I folded one up, well unfolded one really, and started tracing out all the creases on it. ugh. there’s a lot of silly little folds there! although I think doing this for all my models will probably give me a better sense of how they work, as I have to sit and think about parts of it that I just fold instinctively when I’m creating things.

I’d post a shot of the work in progress here, but I haven’t hooked up my scanner in a while so I don’t want to dig it out of the closet at the moment. (yes, I’m just that lazy).

and of course I’ll slap it on flickr, just because I really really like putting stuff on flickr. it makes my day. especially getting random feedback from people; it’s nifty.

more than ANYTHING I was amazed to see people looking at this page other than myself. that’s a bit shocking, really. glad you people found this interesting enough to actually sit through a post or two. I have a sign in my office at work that says “YOUR BLOG SUCKS”. I’ve always told myself I’d never have one, because hearing about people’s cats or their hard day at work filing mortgage paperwork is very dull. that’s why I’m trying to stick to a topic that I might have something to talk about, and I’m not whinging on about my hard day at the office. or my cats. because I’m nice like that. or something.

I should mention that I normally capitalize sentences and things of that nature, but my shift key on this PC is a bit dodgy and thusly I’m coming across like a bad mix between e.e. cummings and a 12 year old girl texting on a cell phone. I apologize for that.

I’m trying to gear myself up to go downstairs and cut up some rather fancy imported washi paper that’s been in my art closet for about a year now. Owesen (of flickr fame and international jet-setter) informed me that there’s no excuse not to use it, and I think he’s right. that still doesn’t make me feel any less a sense of dread about cutting up this paper, as I tend to make bad cuts. at least I’m not a surgeon!

hope the weekend finds you all well. happy folding!

so I’m doing a bit of googling for hexagonal tessellations and I found this page… which had photos of mine from flickr on it, and a link to me on the top. weird.

http://www.taggling.de/tag/hexagon

So I’m a little clueless as to how that happened, but whatever. I’m happy with having people look at my artwork, it’s not like I’m putting it online to keep it secret or anything!

I need to make a point to mention origami in every post, too, so it shows up in technorati and other pages like that. I’m just a sucker for attention. origami tessellations right here, people!