This little trio isn’t the end but merely the beginning. Finding something I can fold all the way through without looking at the book is a great feeling.

Yes, I’m an origami novice. It’s okay; I’m going to be great some day. Entertaining folks is still possible though. Making a miniature penguin during a meeting today kept me awake and got some attention.

Ingredients? take one note posty – fold a handful of times.

I believe the pattern in the book, Teach Yourself Origami, is likely copyright protected. That said, this is an easy pattern.

This really works best with black and white paper of course, but colors really catch the eye.

There are dozens of origami penguin diagrams. Most of them produce more realistic penguins but few of them are easy enough a beginner could do it in a few minutes.

Reverse folds are the strongest technique you’ll need for this one.

Liz Mitchell, aka Pixelfish, made me blush. She’s written a short but flattering article over on her site about yours truly and this blog, Folding Paper.

Liz’s work covers a myriad of mediums, techniques and styles. Creative drive, and a strong sense of self drive the work. It’s an honor have my own humble origami work pointed out.

Click through and read the review, then leave a thought or two on her blog.

A whale of a good fold.

Diagram:
This whale model was folded based on a diagram at Origami-Club.Com.

My Experience:
Though the whale has very few folds, I had a tough time deciding how far to do each fold.

Additionally, the fourth step/fold, where a backwards fold is done, was a bit tricky to get lined up evenly.

I enjoyed doing this model for both the low number of steps and it is a rewarding model in appearance.

Personalize:
Personalizing is easy enough with a marker, but I’d recommend folding out the tail to distinguish your model.

Additionally, this whale has no hump. Simply fold in near the front and or further in on the back end to give the whale a hump near where the spout would be.

Additional Notes:
This model was constructed with blue paper due to an unfortunate lack of black. I’d recommend black for your model if possible.

The site mentioned above is not really a club. Origami-club.com is the site created by Fumiaki Shingu. It was founded in 2002 and is really a site where models, diagrams, and videos are published demonstrating origami construction. Origami Club encourages the fair use of it’s diagrams. All of the work is copyrighted and requires their permission for commercial use.

Diagram:
This face is folded in accordance with Teach Yourself Origami by John Montroll. Pages 38/39.

My Experience:
The most difficult part of this was the rabbit-ear folds. The initial folds are the fish base.

This is folded inwards to start so it’s entirely of the non-white side color.

In any case, this isn’t super complex but is very satisfying when finished.

Personalize:
As changes to this, you could tilt the hair differently, or more intricately.

Also the eyes are rabbit-ear folds followed up with squash folds and then tucking under. Easily modified to make squinted eyes or more rounded.

The nose would be the easiest way to make this your own. Folding it down or out. Also, accordion folding it up more to add wrinkles would be a nice change up.

This simple traditional fish is cute, and a rewarding fold.

Diagram:
The fish was folded per diagrams in Teach Yourself Origami by John Montroll, page 37/38.

My Experience:
Starting with the fish base, you are only 7 steps away from finishing the fish. The fish base is made from two rabbit-ear folds.

The fish, though seemingly simple, involved yet another new fold, the rabbit-ear. The number of folds isn’t many, so this is a good return on the time investment. The rabbit-ear just takes time to ‘get’.

Struggling with the rabbit-ear was as I said toughest. I’m including a short video.

It’s just the first part of folding to demonstrate the rabbit-ear folding technique. I do hope this helps.

Personalizing:
To ad variety, the fins section could use multiple folds or even a squash-fold on the tips to make it 3 dimensional perhaps.

This particular fish is symetrical between top/bottom. You could easily round off the top for a change up as well.

Use ideas:
These would be great to use for a quick decorative addition, especially done in a variety of colors. A school of them could be placed on a table, or arrayed on a wall.

Diagram:
The duck was folded per diagrams in Teach Yourself Origami by John Montroll, page 35.

My experience:
The duck was made with a focus on using the outside reverse-fold. The folds are layed out to end up with a solid colored model when complete.

What’s interesting about folding this is the inital folds get unfolded. Then new folds are made with an outside reverse-fold to make the head/neck. The tail is then reverse folded as well.

To even it out, the bottom point it folded behind to parallel the top.

Not as rewarding as some of the other designs for how it comes out, but it’s good for practice.

This model took me several attempts to not do with crumples.

A set of these on a table would be a nice decoration.

Personalizing:
The angle of the tail and head can both be adjusted.
The back, the mountain fold, could be folded in as well to create a greater slop towards the tail.

What spurred me into finally taking up origami wasn’t just having time on my hands and a few extra bucks. It was this book, Teach Yourself Origami, sitting in the bargain bin at Borders. Something about the half price tag that really caught my eye, and oh yeah, the animals on the front.

Buying a good book is only useful if you open it. Since it’s a book on origami, just opening the book wasn’t going to be enough, something else was needed, paper. Origami paper to be precise.

Borders didn’t seem to have any, and neither did Walmart. You can buy just about anything there, but apparently not origami goodies. Then something reminded me how Barnes & Noble always has craft stuff up front, so I headed over. Sure enough, they had paper.

If you’ve never done any origami, you might think choosing paper would be a no-brainer. Heck, why not just grab your newspaper and get going. You could, but for a beginner, the square paper is the best.

Paper in hand, it was time to crack open Teach Yourself Origami. I’m only part way through the folding diagrams but I love it already. There’s an in depth review here, but let me cover a few highlights.

• Easy to read diagrams.
• Introduces new folds along side new diagrams.
• Diagrams have good but simple explanations.
• There’s no fluff. It’s all about the origami.

Here’s a photo to give you an idea:

Origami Frog folded from Teach Yourself Origami

As a first origami book, this is a winner. As an added bonus there’s a bit of history. I’d like to note also that this book focuses on single paper folding, without the use of scissors or tearing. That’s more orthodox than some folders enjoy.

Pick up Teach Yourself Origami at Amazon.