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Showing posts from September, 2023

Swimming Origami Tessellation

 This tessellation is about as basic as they get. Straight up rhombuses. One flowing seamlessly into the next. It's simple, but I just love the pattern.  When the paper is damp because the weather is wet, less complicated designs are a wonderful exercise in the fundamentals.  Someday, if it ever stops raining and being humid, I'll hopefully get back to some more complicated structures.  In the meantime, there are lots of interesting ideas to explore that are more rudimentary.  I like how in this tessellation the rhombuses almost appear to have movement. A little bit of an optical illusion effect.  The design is the same on both the front and the back. The two sides are mirror images of each other. Also known as mirror symmetry.  My diagram is included for reference. 

Corsets Origami Flagstone Tessellation

 Here's an interesting, almost linear flagstone tessellation that I created. It's almost both circular and linear at the same time. The shapes do rotate around hexes, but they also repeat in a kind of linear fashion.  It consists of trapezoids and triangles. Four trapezoids and two triangles per hexagonal twist. The repeats are petty standard. One iteration leads seamlessly into the next.  It features an interesting pattern on the reverse side. Mostly triangles, but also some linear connections between the trapezoids.  It's a little unusual compared to any of the flagstone tessellations I've done before. Similar, but different enough to make me think.  The back side of flagstones always look more interesting than the fronts to me.  Your mileage may differ.  It was a little difficult to fold, but nothing crazy.  For more insight see my crease pattern below. 

Civil Wars Origami Tessellation Design

 Here's an interesting tessellation pattern that I recently found. It looks like there are small triangle twists, but it's actually rhombuses that are partially folded over.  When I drew it out on the grid paper, it looked pretty simple. When I went to fold it, it was kind of tricky.  I used standard printer paper, so a more substantial paper might facilitate the execution better. But I was more interested in a getting a nice back light.  The main circles of rhombuses twist around a large hexagon. However, the way that they twist and overlap kind of hides that fact. At the center you wiid up with just a small negative space hexagon.  On their outer edges the rhombuses are connected by small hexagonal twists.  When the pattern is repeated open back triangle twists take up the spaces between the small hexes, aligning with their axes so they can twist synchronously.  All of this is made much more obvious in the crease pattern that's included below.  The back side has an intere

Origami Tessellation: Mountain Climbing

Searching for something simple, yet interesting, I came up with this pattern.  The weather lately, has not been conducive to intricate designs. So I was hungry for something new and intriguing that I could fold without the dampness interfering.  I came up with a rhombus with triangles twisting at all four axes. In order to repeat the pattern, I used the corners on the outside of the triangle twists to facilitate the next array.  The shapes overlap each other in some areas. It's folders choice how they land from top to bottom.  It's pretty easy to fold, as was my intention.  It has interesting layers and weaving on the reverse side.  It's just one of those wonderfully simple designs that looks much more tricky than it actually is.  Crease pattern included below. 

Galaxies Origami Tessellation

 This tessellation is curious in that I conceived of what most folders would consider the backside when creating it. It wasn't until after I'd finished folding it that I noticed the other side had more of a 'front look'.  What is the front and what is the back? Maybe both sides are fronts. Can such a thing be? My initial idea was simply triangle twists around open back hexagons. Those then flow into a triad of triangle twists around collapsed triangle.  What happens on the other side are rhombuses around the open back hex. The rhombuses also form triads around the collapsed triangles which on that side are up facing. This side has a similar look to a flagstone tessellation, but the gaps are a little wider because of how the central triangles collapse rather than twist.  It's an interesting variation on familiar techniques. It also boasts a lot of repetitions for a relatively small 32 pleat triangle grid.  It's a lot of shapes, but it isn't too difficult t

Rosebuds Tessellation by GatheringFolds

 This tessellation by gatheringfolds had me stumped. She alluded to a fold she referred to as a closed hexagon twist. This was not something with which I was familiar. This was not something I'd ever discovered or encountered. It was totally new to me.  I've been doing origami tessellations for the better part of 5 years and I thought that I knew all the folds and all the tricks. I did not.  Watching the beginning of her video tutorial showed me the unusual fold which she had used in this particular tessellation. If I had not watched it, I'm not sure whether or not I would've ever figured out the concept.  So, my take away is that there's always more to learn.  Once I understood this new shape/fold, I was all good to finish the process of replicating the design.  It also occurred to me that it works in a similar fashion to what I call offset hex twists. Where in an alternating pattern, three of the shapes that emanate from it can exist on the front and the other thr

Fatal Layers

 This is an interesting little tessellation that I found. Essentially, it's a hex twist and then there are some more overlapping hexes around it. It's at that point that you can create the triangle twists that overlay the initial folds.  It has a similar look to triangle twists around a hex, but it has some more layers.  I drew the crease pattern to express the finished fold in two different ways because I wasn't sure just one way would get the point across.  You can fold this in stages.  First the central hex. then the outer hexes. Which aren't actually hexes. They're double wide. But when you overlay them you wind up with what resembles hex twists.  From there you can do the triangle twists. They're not easy to do in such close quarters, but I managed okay with pretty cheap paper.  See below for the diagrams.