As you might have seen, I've been working on
origami tessellation techniques,
so I wanted to show you some models
to show you why I think
origami tessellations are interesting.
One of the first tessellations I folded
is the Hydrangea by Shuzo Fujimoto
Tessellations basically are just patterns that spread
over the whole paper
and repeat themselves.
This one's special because it gets smaller and smaller
and is somewhat restricted in that way
If you turn it around, that's what it looks like
I have a video that shows 3 stages
This one has 7 stages
but you can easily generalize.
Another one by Shuzo Fujimoto
is the clover folding, which I also made a video of
This one has 7 stages
and again the video shows 3 stages
but you can generalize.
And this is what the model looks like from the back.
If you think that kind of looks interesting,
you might want to get a book
which is called
"Origami Tessellations: Awe-Inspiring Geometric Designs" by Eric Gjerde
I'm going to show you a couple of
models I folded from this book
And the book is available on Amazon, so, you know
if you're interested, you can get it.
The book is divided up into chapters
And the first project actually, not chapter
The 1st project is called Five-and-Four
and it's on a square grid and only needs
90 degree pleat intersections -- so it's a very easy model to start with.
You can see backlit that this is the pattern
that is generated.
Very often, when I do tessellations
I use transparent paper
so that when you backlight it
it has this nice effect
The 2nd project in that book is
Spread Hexagons
This one's on a triangle grid
and I went a bit crazy and did 64 divisions
which was a lot of work
But I think it turned out very nice
and the back looks very similar
And so, that's that.
You need 120 degree pleat intersections
to complete this model.
The next model is called Star Puff
It's not designed by Eric Gjerde but by Ralf Konrad
So some of the designs in the book
are by other creators
which I think is actually quite nice
I like this model
It's what you'd usually call 2 1/2 D
Tessellations are usually flat
but this one kind of puffs up the stars
and then it's slightly three-dimensional.
The technique you need here is obviously a triangle grid
and very many triangle twists
-- all of these small ones.
And this is what it looks like from the back
which is also quite nice.
The 7th project
in the book is
the Open Back Hexagon Twist
which you can see here the model
I wasn't quite happy with the result
of this model in transparent paper
So I did another one
with non-transparent paper
So you can see
the hexagons
and on the back you can see
kind of this weave pattern.
For the Open Back Hexagon Twist model you need
well, the open back hexagon twist
and triangle twists.
And again it's on a triangle grid.
The 9th project in the book
is the Water Bomb
You basically just need a
square grid
and then you have to collapse, and it's a bit hard
It kind of rolls up and
my boyfriend always says it looks like exploded cheese
I'm not quite sure why
So that's kind of a fun model
So that's what it looks from the front
and this is the back.
The 17th project
-- now we're jumping to the more advanced models because
the projects are all rated
from beginners, intermediate, to advanced
and this is one of the advanced projects.
And Stacked Triangles
need rabbit ear triangle sinks
and those are a bit tougher to perform
And you can see that you have these
stacked triangles here
If you turn it around
you can see a lot of hexagons stacked
So those are a couple of models I folded from the book
The book shows -- let me show you --
it first introduces some techniques
which is very helpful
and then the diagrams themselves
first show a crease pattern
and then have pictures with descriptions
on what to do.
So that's really nice to fold with
It's sometimes a bit tricky, I have to admit
but you know, it's no fun if it's not tricky.
The final one
is called Rhombic Flowers
it's a crease pattern that Eric Gjerde put on his website recently
His website is www.origamitessellations.com
And this one's folded from a hexagon
and it needs rhombic twists
I had a bit of difficulty folding it at first
I started on a hexagon with a 64 divisions grid
And I really got confused
and didn't know where to go, so
I started over with the same size paper
and only used a 32 division grid
and that helped a lot.
So you can kind of see a star in the middle
but I think what it's really meant to show
is a flower right here
So you've got a hexagon in the middle
and then you've got
the petals
which are rhombi
And on the small one you have
3 of them, here's another one
And here's a 3rd one
So if you look at the back you can see
I was puzzling a bit, so I drew in some lines
And I think that's fine for a test model
sometimes it helps to draw in creases
and then see how you get along
There's nothing bad about that at all
And if you try tessellations that might be something that
you could attempt, to make life easier.
So I hope you enjoyed these models
I hope you enjoy the technique videos
and give origami tessellations a try.  Happy Folding!
