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Akira Yoshizawa was one of the great heroes of my childhood because of his beautiful origami models. Later he became one of my great heroes because he lived as a full-time artist and teacher. Now he is a hero because of all that and because he was a great teacher both in person and through his books. Technical writers, to name one top-of-mind example, could learn a lot from him about how to ease readers gradually into ever more complex content.
The hot trends in origami today are leaning away from Yoshizawa. Straight lines, pre-creasing, modular constructs, a lot of abstract geometrics. Yoshizawa folded natural forms, not stellated cube-octahedra. Although I do love me some stellated cube-octahedra (is it odd to have a favorite polyhedron?) I still fold in the air, not on a table, and I still try to remember to pause for a sacred moment before making the first fold because that's what Yoshizawa did. And I want to be like Yoshizawa.
Robert Lang was also a childhood hero of mine. I will print out a copy of his "G" crease pattern here and maybe give it a try, since "G" is a conveniently relevant letter for me. But objects and crease patterns are not my favorite type of origami. This is.
I just went looking for a link to one of Yoshizawa's particularly brilliant books and found it posted online. Now you have no excuse except to fold some of these. Notice how there are three versions of a crab on pages 18-19. Fold through them all, and you'll learned more about origami than I would have thought possible to teach in a single afternoon. (If you are a beginner, fold the grasshoppers and frogs on page 23 first.)
The hot trends in origami today are leaning away from Yoshizawa. Straight lines, pre-creasing, modular constructs, a lot of abstract geometrics. Yoshizawa folded natural forms, not stellated cube-octahedra. Although I do love me some stellated cube-octahedra (is it odd to have a favorite polyhedron?) I still fold in the air, not on a table, and I still try to remember to pause for a sacred moment before making the first fold because that's what Yoshizawa did. And I want to be like Yoshizawa.
Robert Lang was also a childhood hero of mine. I will print out a copy of his "G" crease pattern here and maybe give it a try, since "G" is a conveniently relevant letter for me. But objects and crease patterns are not my favorite type of origami. This is.
I just went looking for a link to one of Yoshizawa's particularly brilliant books and found it posted online. Now you have no excuse except to fold some of these. Notice how there are three versions of a crab on pages 18-19. Fold through them all, and you'll learned more about origami than I would have thought possible to teach in a single afternoon. (If you are a beginner, fold the grasshoppers and frogs on page 23 first.)
