Hobby Assistant

Go ahead, now be a paper tiger!

01.01.70

How it started

The Japanese art of ori (folding) and kami (paper), which is over a thousand years old, actually did not start in Japan. It began in China in the first or second century and then spread to Japan sometime during the sixth century. The Samurai were known to exchange gifts with a noshi, which was a paper folded with a strip of dried fish or meat, that was considered a good-luck token. Also, the Shinto Noblemen would celebrate weddings by wrapping glasses of sake or rice wine in butterfly forms that had been folded to represent the bride and groom. Most origami instructions were passed on by oral tradition. But not just the Japanese, the Moors from Africa also brought paper-folding with them to Spain in the eighth century. They created geometric figures as their religion prohibited them from creating animal forms. From Spain, it spread to South America. As trade routes were developed, the art of origami was introduced to Europe and later the United States . Since then, origami has been evolving and today, master paper-folders can be found across the world.

A few paper transformers

Says Himanshu Agrawal of an origami club. "This is an art that gives life to paper and imagination. Origami is a respected thought...a child-like pleasure and yet not childish," he states. A voice artiste and copywriter by profession, he started practising the craft when he was 10. "It's my 23rd year of working with origami; I have three records in it now — tallest origami giraffe (20-ft tall), the longest dinosaur (105 ft) and this year, as it's the Year of The Dragon, I made a 25-foot creature." Today, he and 60 others form what they call a "group of origami addicts!" They're based all over India. "Paper is a very valuable medium; people are discovering it even more," he adds.

Other benefits of the craft

Besides the obvious benefit of satiating one's creative urge, origami has other uses as well. Apart from enhancing concentration and creativity, paper-folding can help develop subtle skills like patience and spatial visualisation. "The idea is to move away from a craft; people actually express their emotions through it. We all approach this art in different ways: scientific, methodic, purist, artistic. Collectively, we teach each other techniques and models. Individually, we teach ourselves patience. There's a lot we can do with it. It has been found that children don't use their hands any more as their attention span is low, and origami increases patience and creativity. It increases hand-to-eye co-ordination and helps develop friendships. Not many know that mathematicians too, have used origami to prove many a great theorems. In addition, origami competitions at work places are great stress-busters as they are said to have a soothing effect on the mind. For this reason, the craft has acquired relevance in places like special schools, hospitals and even prisons! Patients become calmer trying to indulge in a happier pursuit," says the expert.

Source: Times of India

How to Make an Origami Gift Box (Intermediate)

Then, we must produce the four corners of the box by locking the sides of the box together. In this tutorial, I will spell out impression-by-interfere how to conceive the origami gift box (designed by Marc Vigo Anglada in 1996). After all of the corners of the box are locked, we must then gather the flaps of the box so that we may interlock them. I unravel in detail the from for locking one corner of the box and then you may do the unconsumed 3 corners. Then, put your gift privileged the box and give it to whoever you like. We will first spawn folds which will periphery the dimensions of the box and also the extreme fell.

Source: crackminds.com