I decided to go ahead and do Alessandro Beber's 'One Cube' origami design. Originally, I'd done only the background exercise and found it to be a little labor intensive But such is my relationship with folding paper. Just when I think I've had too much, I go in a little bit deeper. His instructions were clear and easy to follow, assuming you're already at least an intermediate folder who's pretty familiar with collapsing, crease patterns and tessellating. Here you can see the backlit version. Next is the front side unlit and then the rear. It's a pretty impressive creation when you really stop to think about it. It almost seems impossible that it can be just a single sheet of paper and yet, that's exactly what it is. His more advanced designs are even more amazing. I'll probably be giving some of those a go sometime in the future. The whole thing inspired me to think of rhombus twists in an entirely different light. There are, no doubt...

I'm a fan of happyfolding.com. She has great instructional videos for all levels of origami. It's there that I discovered the intricate origami of Alessandro Beber. I purchased his ebook to learn more. This is just the background, or foundation, to his designs, but I think it's a great tessellation in its own right.  On one side it's a series of tightly overlapping triangles. On the other a neat array of the inverse. When it's back lit it looks three dimensional, thought it's a flat fold at this point. It's a little daunting  to think this is just the starting point. I'll have to press onward with the further steps at some point in the future. For now, I'm happy with this result.

This is something I got out of the awe inspiring tessellations book by Eric Gjerde. When I'd done all the standard tesses, I decided to try a few mini versions. A series of interconnected hexagons and triangles populate the paper. I used a very small square and the mini version came out pretty good.   I've been working on a few new tessellation ideas of my own as well as crease patterns. While I'm always up for creating some new designs, mapping the process is a challenge. Still, it amazes me that a year ago I wouldn't have thought it possible to fold such an intricate tessllation on any size paper, let alone such a small one. Yet, there it is.

Here's a new origami tessellation I just recently folded. I had been playing with the central design for a while and finally figured out how to make the edges work nicely with it. It came out a lot nicer than I thought it would. When it's back lit it really has a beautiful appearance.  It begins with a small center hexagon. That is surrounded by rhombus twists all flowing together in the same direction. Here's the interesting thing about this design. I can't explain the math behind it, but because the rhombus twists flow off of a central hexagon twist I was able to to fold them over 2 pleats in the clockwise direction of the central hexagon twist. The arms connecting the center to the edges in the back lit photo show this quite clearly. This surprised me since they were only twisted one pleat along their other axes. This is what allowed for all six of the rhombuses to flow in the same direction and lie so close together as they do. The outer edge rhombuse...

Here is a miniature version of the classic origami spread hex tessellation. I began with a fairly small square of paper and folded the traditional triangle grid on it with 32 pleats. The square was derived from a standard 8.5 x 11 piece of printer paper. That was trimmed to a square. Then that square was divided into four small squares. It was from one of those that this was folded. When I originally became interested in origami tessellations it was because of the spread hexagon tess. It intrigued me so much. I was determined to fold it myself. There were several failed attempts before I finally caught on to the rhythm its construction. It was finally coming to understand that design that opened up the whole world of origami tessellations to me. Suddenly they all made sense. Or most of them anyway. It's a beautiful design that belies its underlying simplicity. What I love about it most is that it's a paradox. It's both complex and simple. That is, to me, the appeal of all...

Origami is both the ultimate relaxation and the ultimate frustration. Tessellations, I think, are the epitome of that. I love them and hate them. But I love them more than I hate them. Another Eric Gjerde design. It was in his tessellations book, but at the back without instructions. It wasn't too difficult to figure out the basic architecture. I just seem to have trouble with the laying out the repetitions. A 32 pleat grid is pretty much the limit of my patience. But a lot of designs call for at least 48 pleats. So I try to squeeze things together. Or settle for partial iterations. I worked out the gist of it, but I may have done the spaces between the 'flowers' differently. Turned out rather nice though. It's all a learning experience. 

Here's a neat origami tessellation that I created. The back of each 'flower' is a small hex twist. Then I went to the other side of the paper to do the petal shapes. It was a little difficult as all the axes didn't flow together nicely. So there were some inversions of folds involved to make them all play nicely together. It worked out well in the end though. I'm quite pleased with the results. The original concept was created on a small grid in  a single module like the unit shown at center. That single module was flipped and mirrored as necessary to facilitate creating the ones which surround the center. I only left as little space as was absolutely required between each iteration because I wanted to fit as many repetitions as possible into the 32 pleat grid. .  Where the folds for the repeating petals did not line up I was forced to get creative and do some reversing of the pleats. To make everything lay flat any conflicting folds were a combination of a ...

This is another design by Eric Gjerde. His design recommends using a 48 pleat grid for multiple stars. I tried it using only a 32 pleat grid. So there's just the center star surrounded by partial outer stars. The weird thing is that when it's backlit it kinda looks like a face to me. Wasn't expecting that. I wonder if something of this sort is what originally inspired origamist Joel Cooper who's renowned for his incredible tessellated masks.  The stars created by the rhombuses aren't really visible in the backlit photo, but you can see them in the unlit pic. Six rhombuses go around the center to form the interior star. Additional stars connect to it around the edges, but because I used a smaller grid, the outer stars  are all halves. It was a fairly straight forward fold. Nothing too crazy. As always, a single sheet of paper. Eric's original post and instructions are available here: http://www.origamitessellations.com/2009/08/rhombic-flowers/

A cute little one piece star. I honestly don't remember how I made it other than starting with a 16 x 16 triangle gird on a square and cutting it into a hexagon. It's a pretty basic design, but has a nice appearance. I bet it'd be a really cool larger tessellation for sure. I really need to keep better track of my folding processes. I love trying other people's crease patterns, but am shamefully lax in sharing my own. I tend to fold with ordinary paper. When I unfold it to try to discren the genders of the folds it really doesn't show very well at all. Even when I do use origami paper, I have a difficult time finding that nature of the folds after the model has been undone. Folding is an art. Diagraming it is another altogether. I haven't mastered either. But trying to is a lot of fun.

This was one of my first attempts at a somewhat complex tessellation pattern. It was conceived sorta randomly. I knew I wanted to start with a star at the center. So I began with a small hexagon surrounded by triangle twists radiating from the points. From there I kinda just alternated between teardrop, hexagonal and triangular shapes. As the pattern moves outward there are some choices as to which direction in which to lay the folds. This is entirely personal preference and changes the design only slightly. I think it wound up as a rather interesting structure and pattern. Definitely one I've not seen elsewhere. Which is always nice. The back lit effect is very pretty in my opinion. I've been working on generating a crease pattern for it. I'm still learning that skill though. Anyone with a little experience can  probably work out  what's going on from looking at this non back lit photo.  If you do wind up folding it, I'd love to see your results.  It's a 3...

This is a variation on Eric Gjerde's Five and Four tessellation. Using a square grid I made the paper four rows by four columns of squares with no borders between or around the margins. As with Eric's original design I just used 90 degree pleat intersections to create the squares pattern on the paper. It's a 32 division grid. Each square is 4 wide. There are 4 pleats between each square. Everything is 2 pleats in from the edge. After that it was only a matter of folding the appropriate corners of some of the squares to create the desired affect. The interesting thing about this pattern is that you can rearrange the various corners of the squares to create an array of different patterns. Depending on which way you fold any of the corners of the squares you'll get a different tessellation. As always, a single sheet of paper was all that was used. It was a typical 8.5x11 piece of printer paper that I trimmed to a square. I really like regular printer paper for tesse...

Here's a little star I made. It's basically an in and out pattrn. It uses a triangle grid with a small hexagon at the center.  After the initial hexagon the layers alternate between valley and mountain folds. The layers use some between the grid folds to create the points. Otherwise it's pretty basic and straightforward. It's a tall, 3D design, that's several layers deep. This unfortunately isn't very apparent from my amateur photography. But if you take it upon yourself to actually fold the model you'll be able to appreciate its depth. It's a fairly simple design that yields a rather complex looking result. Bascially make a small hexagon at the center of a 14 pleat grid. Then make a concentric star pattern out from there. Aternating in and out. I hope to offer a helpful crease pattern sometime soon.

Here's a new origami tessellation. It's probably been done before, but it was new to me. A field of small hexagons on a standard 32 division triangle grid. Each hexagon is the smallest available in the grid. Start at the center and work four pleats outward. The veins between the hexes are then creased in half, undfolded and squashed. If you have a larger size paper you could go further and fold in the edges of the hexagons. Either in a triangle pattern or using the classic tato technique. You'll need very neat and precise squash folds if you want to do that.  Pictured here both backlit and regular. Folded using a single sheet of standard, white 8.5x11 copy paper cropped into a square.

I discovered the pineapple tessellation during a routine google search for origami tessellations. I believe the original designer is Ilan Garibi. The design and accompaning instructions are featured at the Origami USA website It's actually really easy to fold. It's basically two steps after the intial precreases. This version is a 4x4 high density model. But it can be folded as a single module, denser, less dense and with or without borders between the modules. For a fairly simple design, it has a complex and impressive appearance It requires a single sheet of paper. The requirements for the size of the paper vary depending on how many modules you wish to incorporate. It's an inspirational design that shows the stunning results that can be achieved without a lot of fuss.

Here's a cute little origami star based off of the the classic triangle grid. The grid is made from the method demonstrated in Eric Gjerde's awe inspiring tessellations book. I then cut out a hexagon from that grid. This results in a hexagon with 7 rows per half. I find it much easier to cut an accurate hexagon from this technique than from the other methods. But you do loose a row per side this way. So it's a 14 row hexagon to start. Classic hex twist at the center. Smallest center twist is a mountain fold, then a valley on the next row, then another mountain. We're creating a 3D star at the center. Then we just finish it off with creating the arms/petals. A very rudimentary crease pattern is shown below. Squiggly lines are valleys. Solid lines are mountains. All the folds are a part of the original triangle grid except those little diagonals between the pointed petals. Those are valley folds. Add them before you begin folding the star. It'll make it muc...