And so we begin the second half of
This is hard work you know! I hope everyone is enjoying the marathon of posts 🙂
The above is a photo taken from Bernard’s blog. He is, as we all know, a master of origami. If you’re unfamiliar with his talents, refresh your memory with some examples of his skill.
But I bet you didn’t know that he was once the student, and I the master?
It’s an undisputed fact that, way back in the days of yore, my brother’s interest in origami was ignited by my very own passion for paper folding. Indeed I was so proficient that people never used to call me ‘The Wizard of Whitebridge‘. In those days I could fold boats and hats and even a crane like a savant.
However I let my talents slip, and haven’t folded in quite some time. I started to wonder: could I still do it? Was I still a master, a wizard even? It was time to find out!
But what to fold? Well here’s where my buddy SFL enters the picture, since she suggested ‘bears’ as a blog topic for this 12-day marathon. Even though she may have been deliberately trying to sabotage me (bears?!?!?!?) all of a sudden it was clear: I would fold a bear!
The rules were simple: make an origami bear without consulting any pattern and instead using a fold that was completely and originally my own. I chose gold paper and started folding, using just the plans in my own head.
There was lots of pre-folding and scoring and initially it started to look more like a boat (or hat) than a bear. But that was not a problem, since I was once the god of folding paper hats! As I continued with my 100% original pattern, I ran into some difficulty when I got to a step that required a type of fold I chose to name a ‘petal fold’. But I soldiered on, and managed to complete the folds by myself and entirely without the assistance of a calmly-spoken Englishman and his channel of origami videos on Youtube.
You can see by this point I was being guided simply by the vision on my own mind, and the paper had started to resemble a bear! To allay the stress, I watched some completely unrelated videos on my iPad as I folded.
The entire process took maybe an hour to finish. I’m proud to say I did a wonderful job, and here is the result:
Magnificent isn’t it! A beautiful golden sun bear, that looks absolutely nothing like a pig! Critics may claim that the choice of paper size suggests the actions of a rank amateur, and that some of the folds leave a bit to be desired. But I can assure you they were intentional, as if to suggest ruggedness and victory against the forces of the wild.
Here’s another artistic shot of my superb creation that doesn’t look anything like a swine:
So as to compare against my skills, I asked my brother to fold a bear as well. He made some blathering claims of not having enough time and not having a suitable pattern, but this morning I received his version accompanied by the comment: “Best I could do given the short notice“:
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He’s just showing off now isn’t he?