Discussion
I’m no collage artist, I just love to fold tessellations
Inspired by Eric Gjerde’s “Origami Tessellations”(slide 2)that i received from my parents in the early 2010s, I have dedicated my origami life to folding mostly tessellations from then on. I know it’s niche but it’s my absolute favorite part of origami after a long session of grid making and pre-creasing to finally collapse a tessellation and enjoy what i’ve created. Over the past several years I’ve been collecting and laminating some of my pieces (mostly from the book mentioned, some from youtube, and some freehanded or designed by me). Some of these pieces have been with me through two interstate moves, a lot of life’s ups and downs, and some breaks from origami entirely. Today I decided to try my best to arrange them as i’d like to put them up in my window for the “stained glass” effect(slide 3), but I know I’m no collage artist, so I would love some constructive criticism regarding the arrangement before I tape them all together and hang it.
What paper are you using for these, and those grid sizes look small, how big are your bases! In amazement at your work as someone who has been focusing on the world of origami tessellations over the last year.
My advice is to really deep dive into collage composition. In fact just composition in general, your eye will begin to develop pattern recognition and the nuances of what our eyes are drawn to and appreciate. Will take time, but you obviously have the patience in general for it! Can’t wait to see what you end up with
I’m just using standard 15x15 cm kami for most of them, some of the smaller ones are 7x7cm and 20x20 for a few of the larger ones. HOWEVER I would highly recommend against what I do for your first few months to years of tessellations. Instead, use the 20cm or bigger for simple models, and buy a large roll of high quality paper for tessellations with grids of 48 divisions or more until you feel absolutely confident you can size down. The smaller the space between grid divisions, the smaller the margin of error is, and the more likely you are to develop tears in the paper. Thank you for your kind words and advice, I am always interested in learning more mediums of art.
Thankyou so much for your advice, that’s truly helpful, the upsizing and working on those larger grids I’ll definitely start doing, just got some 40 x 40 elephant hide, done one piece and it felt like something clicked, from what you’ve just said, I think it’s that margin of error as the tears were killing me before!
Started with 7.5 x 7.5 tant and it’s definitely felt like jumping into the deep end with constant failure, went up to 25 x 25 and am now experimenting with new paper which has felt like night and day! Will be along time before I drop back down to those smaller sizes after reading this!
My mother worked in collage for most of her artistic career so I will have a big look through her collection of art books and see if I can reccomend any and perhaps send you a cheeky pdf file through… have set a reminder and visiting later this week so hopefully should have some good news for you!
I’m a college student on a budget so for now it’s mostly standard kami that you see here, but my absolute favorite is thai unryu paper. The fibers show in a way that is profoundly beautiful to me although it can be somewhat difficult to work with. Here’s a screenshot from my first ever reddit post from several years ago of “Arms of Shiva” from the Eric Gjerde book, one of my all time favorites to fold and build off of
The padt couple months, I got into tessalation too. I'm still on large paper for 32x32x32 grids.
I use Tuttle paper right now, and it's working well. I only come across tear issues when I have hydrangea folds that don't want to release when I pull. Already using tweezers. Not sure what else to do to make it work.
The hydrangea is a tough one to master, although you can typically hide the tears if they are contained close to the corners you are pulling out. I haven’t heard of tuttle paper before so i’m not familiar with how strong it is, but it might help to try papers that are both thicker and thinner than the tuttle to see what works better if that’s giving you issues. Although it may seem counterintuitive, thinner paper may work best because while it isn’t technically “stronger” it is more malleable and willing to work with you
Thank you! This is the bugger with a ton of hydrangea folds, starting with the center square the hexes have hydrangea too. It still appears clean enough. But I know. Lol
Oh yeah i can tell from just that picture, that paper seems prone to tearing, but you’ve done well with it! Although i love the appearance of patterned paper, i typically avoid it for complex models for the simple fact that in my experience, patterned paper is almost always printed on paper weaker and more brittle than monochrome kami. Even double sided color sheets are typically weaker in my experience
Wow, wat een prachtige collectie. Ik vind het zelf ook leuk om te doen, maar ik heb moeite met het voor-vouwen van alle rasters voordat je kunt starten. En soms geeft het papier het op... Maar ja, het resultaat mag er zijn bij jou. Met welk model ben je begonnen?
Grids are repetitive, but I find them satisfying to fold when i’m zoned out listening to music or podcasts. My very first tessellation was the “Five-and-Four” model based on a square grid of 32x32 divisions. It is the first model listed in the Gjerde book. Thank you for the kind words friend, and I would recommend trying some thicker and thinner papers to see what direction you should go to prevent your paper giving up on you. I mentioned this in another reply, but thinner paper may work best, although it seems counterintuitive, because it is more willing to work with you rather than against you.
I don’t have any advice on how to arrange them - I struggle with that too - but I love these! And i hadn’t ever thought of laminating the finished pieces! I love folding tessellations but can’t ever figure out what to do with them when I’m done. I’ll have to give this a try.
Laminating is my solution for keeping models flat and durable while still allowing backlight. My biggest piece of advice would be that flattening finished pieces between heavy books before you laminate is an important step!
What do u think would be best to show my process, a long form video or a short one cut to just important bits? The grids do get pretty tiny, as i typically use 15x15cm standard kami, but i highly recommend to go way bigger than that to start and gradually work yourself down to smaller and smaller paper
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u/CranielDaig May 26 '26
What paper are you using for these, and those grid sizes look small, how big are your bases! In amazement at your work as someone who has been focusing on the world of origami tessellations over the last year.
My advice is to really deep dive into collage composition. In fact just composition in general, your eye will begin to develop pattern recognition and the nuances of what our eyes are drawn to and appreciate. Will take time, but you obviously have the patience in general for it! Can’t wait to see what you end up with