VI International Convention Origami Chile

Origami Chile is happy to announce its VIth International CConvention and 2nd Latin American Congress in Santiago de Chile on August 25th, 26th and 27th. Special guest will be the Masters Eric Gjerde (USA), Isa Klein (Brasil) and Aldo Marcell (Nicaragua). We want to invite all folders and interested to participate on this event and therefore celebrate a fantastic meeting of friendship and paper. Soon we will post more information about inscription, commodities and the program in our web site (http://www.origamichile.cl/).

Calling for Diagrams for the Convention Book

We invite all creators and diagramers to participate in our commemorative Convention book, where we hope to gather wonderful figures, for different levels of complexity. We want this book to keep being a window shelf for latin american (and also worldwide) and we hope to reach many different places in the world. From this edition on we want to privilege:

• Quality on the diagramming

• The use of international rules on representing folds and steps
• Original creations not published before (or at least in a window of 6 months)
• Diagrams in format Freehand, PDF o images like JPG, PNG o GIF.

We ask to send them to: convención.origamichile@gmail.com, with your name, email address, postal address and group you belong (if it is the case). Authors selected will receive a copy of the book after the Congress. The reception will be UNTIL JULY 31st 2011.

kind regards to all.

V Origami Chile Convention Book

Next Chilean Origami Convention is coming next July 29th and its commemorative book is almost ready. Here is a preliminary list with its models that I want to share with you. We are most proud an happy since again an amazing collection of figures, coming from many great authors in the world and specially from Latin America has arrived. It has been always our goal to create a document of high standards where to show the art of so many new creators to the world's community and to the Convention assistants. Its diagramming will be closing next weekend so I would like to invite you in case you want to be part of this beautiful collection and send us one or two of your diagrams. You can send them to convencion.origamichile@gmail.com
Many regards.

V Convención Internacional Origami Chile, Santiago 2010 (Conmemorative Book)

1. Love Letter (Lukyanov Andrey, Rusia)
2. Mama Crane (Jared Needle, USA)
3. Prasentation Saules (Roberto Romero, Perú)
4. Tiranosaurio (Cristián Castillo Estrada, Chile)
5. Dragón Volador (Cristián Castillo Estrada, Chile)
6. Pequeño Elefante (Paul Espinoza, Ecuador)
7. Ray (Ma Yong, China)
8. Manta Raya (Jesús Guillermo Cadena, Colombia)
9. Manta Raya (Jaime Niño, Colombia)
10. Ahh Mask (Bruno Ferraz, Brasil)
11. Zigzag Mask (Bruno Ferraz, Brasil)
12. Girafa (Bruno Ferraz, Brasil)
13. Caracol (Elmer López, Bolivia)
14. Estrella Navidad (Javier Miranda, Venezuela)
15. Fox Terrier (Julio Eduardo C T, Bolivia)
16. Herón (Dr. Michael Weinstein, USA)
17. Japanese Beetle (CP, Diego Fernando Becerra, Colombia)
18. Lesbia Victoriae (Juan Landeta, Ecuador)
19. Liebre (Julio Eduardo CT, Bolivia)
20. Itaibera (Nicolás Delgado, Bolivia)
21. Guacamayo (Alejandro Dueñas, Perú)
22. Loro Pirata (Gabriel Saavedra M, Chile)
23. Jolly Roger (Gabriel Saavedra M, Chile)
24. Perro Juguetón (Gabriel Castro Rodríguez, Colombia)
25. Hipogrifo (Duk Uqullias Erazo, Ecuador)
26. Star Bird (Sanja Srbljinović Čuček, Croacia)
27. Tarjeta Origami (Oswaldo Gutiérrez Tobón, Colombia)
28. Unicornio (Julio Eduardo CT, Bolivia)
29. Minotaur (Gilad Aharoni, Israel)
30. Casco Vikingo (Jaime Niño, Colombia)
31. Pollo Godie (Richard Jiménez, Colombia)
32. Dinosaurio (patricio Kunz, Chile)
33. Barco (Beatriz González, Chile)
34. Cruz Piramidal (Beatriz González, Chile)
35. Moai (Andrei Ermakov, Rusia)
36. Quirquincho (Edwin Claudio Flores, Bolivia)
37. Caballo (Nicolás Gajardo, Chile)

Robert Lang's Rose

Robert Lang is known by the deep mathematical basis underlying on his models. A couple of years ago he published on his site (an amazing site, I have to say) a beautiful rose of many petals, along with its Crease Pattern; apparently he liked the roses made by Kawasaki and others but his desire was to obtain one with more petals and spread in an opened rose (he certainly accomplished it). Almost immediatly a thread was opened on the British Origami Forum, where many get into the solving of its CP.
http://www.thekhans.me.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1227&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=lang+rose&start=0
To follow its eight pages becomes a fascinating experience, about a group of people helping each others and contributing to achieve a common artistic goal. I was so shocked that I've decided to try it and solve for the first time on my life a crease pattern (though almost all the work was already done ha!).



If the CP is observed, one could think that the choice on the proportions on its horizontal creases is a little complicate, but understanding how Lang's work is done, you realize that behind them is certainly a deep study on the proportions desired by the author to the rose's petals, which reduces their size in the way to the center of the flower. In the same way, vertical folds, separated each one by 1/11, allows it to obtain a pentagonal base, as we will see further. However, to obtain these folds or lines without using a ruler and a calculator was strongly difficult; Daydreamer, on that forum's trhead, used the Reference Finder Software (made by the same Robert Lang) to obtain a folding sequence for the seventh line, and a year after another participant, Silent Winter, showed an incredible method to get all the rest lines from this seventh one.

Even when Daydreamer's sequence is very exact, I wasn't sure about its intuitiveness. So I projected a line to the opposite corner of the end of that line and saw that that angle was almost exactly 20 degrees, and that the distance between the bottom edge to it (29/80, 0.3625) was almost the same that from the right edge to the fourth vertical line (4/11, 0.3636); in a way that could make possible to obtain both folds marking the 45º diagonal from that endline matching the lateral edge to the line. To get a 20º fold is not simple, but in a very interesting site I learned to tri sect any angle and I already knew a way to fold a 60º fold.



The second stage on this exercise was to fold collapse the base, which become more complicated; at the end, the best was make the reverse folds from left to right, column by column, opening a little the accordion resulting structure each time. Very useful was to know that for Lang's CPs only the bold marks are the ones that will be really folded on the final base and that yellow ones means valley and black ones mount :) (I like that, an author that doesn want to keep secrets to the rest). Doing so the base toke form. Note that when collapse, base already takes a concave form in its bottom pentagonal level, resulting probably from the careful selection of its proportions in the design process.





And finally the hardest part, trying to shape and form the petals from its pointy layers that the base gave to us. First twisting the levels, using the inner layers resulted from the reverse folds, distributing the points in different angles, like a sun rays array. I've realized the best was go from bottom level to highest, from the largest petals to the small ones in the center of the flower. Curve the large petals down, lifting their bases a little and finally twisting the small ones in a tube-like around the center. I've done it several times and it is really hard to get a satisfactory result, it's a very fine figure and demands a high level on your folding skills. Is evident that a better result is obtained using fine and thin paper and probably also wet folding with Metyll cellulose.





I've gathered all the info I could, plus some pictures, and made a pdf document, which I offer to everyone that could want it. It was a fascinating an amazing experience to solve this CP and I really appreciate Mister Robert Lang for read it and allow me to share it, even when my resulting flowers are still very ugly. All I can say is that Mister Lang is a MASTER. His diagram for the rose exists on 12th JOAS Convention Book and the las Origami USA Convention Book, which I hope I'll get as soon as possible, to follow the path drawn by him.

Many regards to everybody.

Zip pdf file: rosalang2.pdf.zip

My workshop in Purranque: The Kawasaki Rose

A classic figure in origami is the rose created by Toshikazu Kawasaki from his famous twist folding. Its delicate curve petals had made it one of the most popular and spread models inside origami (and outside).

History of this rose is easier to build than the one of its author. There is very few about this japanese mathematician, who teachs in the Sasebo Technologycal School and became the first "Doctor in Origami" of History. He is also known for his theoretical studies about the relationship between origami and mathematics, developing, among others, the Theory of Iso-Areas (Mirror Areas). In 1998 he pulished Roses, Origami & Math (which should be now on its way to my home :) )

On this book there is a complete chapter dedicated to this rose and its variations, being this the first version "from the author" of its diagram. Before, in 1994, during the New York Convention, Kawasaki teached the rose to the american creator Joseph Wu and he folded and gifted one to his friend Winson Chan. He unfolded the gift and developed a folding sequence and diagram, which was published and spread trough the net, becoming very popular and known as the "New Kawasaky Rose". Later, japanese Kunihiko Kasahara published in his book "Origami for the Connoisseur" a diagram a little less elaborated than Chan's and called it the "Original Kawasakai Rose". Many other variations has been created over this three diagrams, to get a larger number of petals or diferents finishing details, but the heart of this figure, the twisting fold, remains unvariable as a testimony of the geniality of its author.

Chan's diagram remains being my favourite, mostly because its final result and also I guess because sentimental reasons (it was one of the first figures I've memorized and gifted) However, I have to admit that its 22.5º grid pre-folded takes out all ellegance to the next steps in the folding. Here there is a video about how the rose is collapsed from its pre-folded CP.

It is precisely the analysis of the New Rose what gave the folder a deep learning about the relationship between geometry and origami. To build this rose is almost being creating, step by step, the CP of the figure, to collapse it then in a couple of master moves. The point I want to remark is that anyone who has folded this a couple of times can realize that the pre-folding of the grid is unnecessary to get tits main folds (step 12 of Chan's diagram). The perfect geometry of Kawasaki give us a large number of references to achieve every one of them from two simple diagonal lines at 22.5º. This is especially useful when you use thick papers o textured to fold the rose, because Chan's method to draw the grid lose accuracy over the edges.

With this in mind, and studying a little, I could develop a diagram to get the full figure from a couple of reference lines, including the secondary petals from steps 9 to 11 on Chan's diagram.

For example, to generate folds from Chan's step 12, it is only necessary the axial line and a reference point, aligning the line over itself and marking the fold passing through the reference point, as I show in the next image:

Is when I remember my old Maths teacher at school, saying by memory: "there is one and just one perpendicular line to a given line which passes through a given point". That can be read as an Origami Theorem: "To fold a perpendicular line of a given one is necessary only that line and a given point"

There are also other references to follow in this particular fold, as I show them in the image above.

Same thing occurs with the other folds from that step:

My hope was to get the rose whit the less possible number of foldings, to get the petals as much clean as possible, but at the end, just a few of them can be avoided. Also the sequence itself is as complicated as Chan's (or even more). All I could keep was the great experience of having learned a lot and grown-up in my relationship with folding and geometry, both things which justify the experience and that's why I share it to anyone who desires to try it. This is the link to the document Google Base page and thi is the direct link to the document (it is zip pdf file and its size is about 1 Mb):

newrose2.pdf.zip

Many regards and luck if you try it :), I'll be happy to answer any question about it.

Memories on a Convention at the end of the world II

One of the things you can experience in a Convention is the learning of bad news. If you practice this handcraft as a self-made and lonely activity, it can pass six or seven years since the death of one of your fauvorite creators. It is so sad and simple, the way somebody simply sais it in a corridor.

Perry Bailey's creations are remarkable because their simplicity and strenght; he died on April 6 of 2000 in a home accident. I use to imagine himself with those characteristics, simple, clear, kind and enthusiastic (a visit to his web site was enough to confirm that, site no longer active, sadly).

I've learn to fold with his figures. His "simple" sorcerer was the first model I've memorized, long years ago; was also the first and single figure I've modified to get a personnel creation. Some time after I folded his funny "Odd duck" (which until today makes me feel good). And finally I discovered (and get into my blood) his astonishing squirrell, no challenged until today: simple, solid, gorgeus, expresive, simply the perfect origami model.

I don't have an account on how many times I've folded it. Perry Bailey's squirrells are spread all over the world, all the places I've put my foot on: China, Italy, New York, Buenos Aires, in a hall in the vatican museum, in a bar in Budapest; in every place and time this figure fits perfectly, producing amazement, astonishment and excitement.

I hope to make a propper tribute to him with this simple words. I'm putting here my own version of an Arlequin, based on his sorcerer, which also came from a John Montroll's model (as Bailey says in the beggining of the diagram).