Well, sitting here in bed all weekend nursing a cold but with laptop by my side, it would appear that I finally have time to upload photos and a bit of commentary on Chapter 4. Guess there's a reason for everything...
Page A left (click image to enlarge):
I was surprised at the results of this exercise because I thought the black shapes on white were quite stunning. Basically, on the page above (samples A1 - A6) I traced part of the ninja star shape placed at various angles on the folded black paper, and then cut out the shapes with a craft knife. The negative shapes, as always, are alluring... A1 shows something like little mouse heads and A2 shows a cross. I tried quite a few ways of folding the paper, A3 folded at random angles.
If I were to do this again, I would try more varieties of size with the shape, which I attempted with another shape:
Page A right:
Here, I used the 6-pointed star, again with a variety of differently-folded papers. A7 is my favorite because it reveals two distinct crosses depending on how you look at it - the paper cross on the left shows a wide cross with an X across its center. The drawing just to its right of the same cutout but turned 45 degrees shows a four-pointed star. I then tried to use more of the shape rather than making all the detailed cuts (A8 and A10). Two ways of folding the approximately 10-centimetre square produced not square shapes, but long ones (A9 and A10). A12 looks almost like a sort of basket weave pattern.
I realised that I was still confining myself to exactly the shapes that I saw and not letting go of the exactness. I had some origami paper to play with, and the results are...
Page B left:
In most of these samples I used combinations of both the ninja and 6-ptd stars. B2 used the 6-ptd star and B3 the ninja star. Again, patterns varied depending on how the papers were folded.
I then continued with the papers I had coloured according to my colour scheme.
Page B right:
B7 was randomly folded and in B8 I used the same way of folding but cut the shape in two sizes. Just for fun, in B9 I brought back two other star symbols from earlier work, the Star Trek star and the 8-pointed star distorted. B10 used a randomly-folded base of a 6-pt star with a ninja cutout that is better viewed in 3-D as points of the shape lift nicely off the paper. In B11 I used scissors to make the lines of the ninja star wavy.
I think that I grew a few centimetres out of my shell in this chapter in that I was actually able to make a few shapes that used a part of the original shape but did not copy it exactly.
Perhaps there is hope ;-)
And perhaps there is hope that I can shed this cold of the past three weeks.
Sigh.
(Total time Chapter 4: approx. 10 hours)
Safety observations:
1) I ALWAYS put knives back in their containers/boxes, even if I'm going to use them in another minute or so. They can roll around, fall on the floor (thus marring this brand new house!), or otherwise cause trouble, not to mention cutting myself or injuring the cat if she's walking by.
2) If I'm using a jar or cup for water to rinse my brushes in, I make sure my o-cha (green tea) is sitting at the other end of the table, or on the other table behind me. If not, I find myself dipping the brush in the tea. If I'm using green, I probably won't notice until I take a sip. If I use red or orange, I'll be confused when I reach for my tea cup because it will look like black tea instead of green. In any case, not healthy to drink, probably. Not to mention the possibility of turning over the cup of tea and messing up the work I'm doing. Tsk, tsk!
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