Articles and Tutorials

Tiling Surprise Believe it or not, Hybrid Closed Islands has the same tiling structure as Robin Scholz's Celtic Circle. Both of these tessellations feature twists with six pleats (hexagon twists) surrounded by twists with three pleats (triangle twists) and vice versa. However, when you look at Hybrid Closed Islands it's easy to see only triangles - because the six-pleated twists only have three-fold rotational symmetry.   Centering Choices In this tessellation, I have three equivalent choices of what to put in the center, and whatever I put in the center will be emphasized in the pattern. Each of these three...

The more I fold grids, the more I realize that the possibilities are endless.

For example, I used to think that triangle grids on hexagons could only be centered on grid intersections - that I had to start by folding the hexagon in half in one way or another.

If you're already familiar with isoarea tessellations, you might notice something unusual about this one - it uses hexagon twists!

Most of the time you'll see isoarea patterns in tessellations with all the same kind of twist - squares, equilateral triangles, right triangles, and occasionally rhombi.

While you may already be familiar with origami terms like mountain and valley folds, sinks, squashes, swivels, and rabbit ears, tessellations have a vocabulary of their own. Unfortunately, the vocabulary of tessellations is not standardized across all tessellation designers and each tessellation book uses different definitions - and different colors and symbols for their diagrams. This can make it hard to learn, since everyone is saying things in different ways. I try to stick to consistent definitions throughout my teaching, and to explain my terms in plain English - no math speak. Here's my list of the most important terms to...

In the beginning, everyone learns origami from someone else.

As you become more advanced, you may start to rely more on recorded tutorials, books, and other diagrams.

At some point, you start creating your own designs - and then how do you learn more?