Friday, May 16, 2014

Lily origami

The original

My favorite origami model is the traditional lily (pictured below). It was one of the more complex and more beautiful flowers in my first origami book (which is a Japanese origami book for kids that was translated into Chinese).
It took me a while to fold it and I'm sure my mom had to help me figure out the steps before I got impatient and declared the particular model "impossible!" (which I did for several models in the book). Years later, I flip through that book again and I can proudly declare that I've probably folded 99% of the models and they are all possible (and actually good diagrams compared to some other books I've seen). Interesting enough, the first model in the bird is the traditional crane. (Note to self: need to scan in book and make into digital book before it falls apart completely)

The Exhibition Brainstorm

For the upcoming Origami USA Convention Exhibition in June, I wanted to do some variation of the traditional lily so was folding them with different shaped polygons (triangles, hexagons, etc). While they all "work", the proportion of the petal to stems are quite comical. 
My friend N. then consequently gave me an ideas to try. "Try cutting two eights pie slice out of an octogon and tape it together to make a cone shaped hexagon, and use that as the base for the Lily, Magic."

I'm not sure if this below is the intended result, but I gave it a shot. It's pretty enough but missing the flower stamen/pistil parts. This would be good for layering or candies though.

The Challenge

This 6 petal lily below was sent from N. with the subject: "Here is a taped version, I like this better than the pie cut, this is based on a square and has petal stem symmetry"

Needless to say, I noticed it's not the same as the versions I've done, and asked for some more instructions.
I could not understand the text instructions which followed and had to ask for more pics to show progression. I got this 8-petal lily with some steps pictured.


more after the jump


Step-by-Step Instructions

After I grabbed some paper and tried it once unsuccessfully (not pictured, I basically overlapped the two squares instead of cutting/taping), I managed to figured out the 8-petal lily. Rough instructions below (at least good enough for me to remember in the future). Warning: this model includes cutting and taping. 






and drumroll..... 

8 petal lily!


in reality, lilies have 6 petals so I have to try that too. In step 1, instead of taping 2 squares together, only tape 1 square with half of a square. 

Thanks for the inspiration!

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