My goal with origami can be summed up as “replicable originality”. I’m not going to outdo anybody on complexity or intricacy or variety of pieces. What I will “bring to the game” are twists on some traditions on origami that others will be able to do, and that I hope others will give a try with their own variations. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

This is a traditional origami crane, possibly the most traditional of the many versions out there. However, I’ve used embossed paper that gives my version a 3D texture, rather than just solid coloured, patterned or even rather flat texture. Here, the texture happens to be wood as you can see in the close-ups from the Instagram photos below (scroll through the collage). The crane is white right now but I’ll find a way to make it brown and more like wood soon. It’s a slightly fresh take on the traditional crane, but one that many people can do. Having a little pressing utensil rather than using your nails will help with flattening those embossed bumps when creasing, if you were intent on trying many of these.

Additionally, I’ve put my crane in a pose not many do, which is wings spread and head and tail stretching like in flight or in a dive. I call it the “thunderbird” mode due to its “fierce” qualities of what could be an attacking pose in a dive to get at its prey, and all the points on the tips and wings that you see in the more predatory raptors rather than peaceful cranes. This, too, is a little different from how I’ve generally seen cranes, but also replicable by anyone wanting to try.

I’ll be blogging about more of my origami adventures this year as I do them, but below is another example from my past. It’s another crane, tie dyed before folding. Totally asymmetric and non-repeating pattern unlike patterns you often get on paper that are symmetric and repeating. Most of my examples will NOT involve cranes, but for the first examples, because of the beauty of the geometry and math involved in the crane, it’s my go to piece to try out lots of things.

Or cellophane origami where you can see inside of the origami and what happened to all that paper you no longer see on the outside.

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