1 million things...(an intro to origami)

I have so many things i want to say now that i have started this blog! Man where do i start?!

My love of paper crafts started from origami. Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding. Here it is often taught in art class to primary school children. But there is more then the typical paper crane out there. Artists like Satoshi KAMIYA work on inventing new origami, like Mr dragon here. I heard it took him 30 hours to fold. There are many varieties of origami folding and the type i like most are the type that look the most life like. I like it when paper is manipulated until it is no longer flat, no longer having sharp edges... almost
as if it were moudable putty. I like it when paper "flows".

What consists a good piece of origami?

- Distinct features and sharp lines and folds.

- The meeting lines of the paper and of the folds should not show of the white underside of the paper. The fold should meet exactly. Origami is like architecture, it is a precise art. If you start off with a piece of paper that is not an exact square or rectangle, you will not make the perfect piece. It is the same if you make a sloppy fold that does not meet edge to edge. This is how i tell the quality of a piece.

-Representation: This also has to do with the point above. A finished piece should look like whatever it is trying to represent. If you fold a crane, it should not look like a hummingbird or a swan.... it should look to the first person who sees it a crane. If it doesn't, either the origami diagram was ill invented or it was simply the folding technique.

If you would like to try your hand on origami, i recommend this site.

http://dev.origami.com/diagram.cfm

There are hundreds of diagrams to try from the very basic to the rather tough.