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Origami paper is the paper used for origami , the art of Japanese paper folding. The only real requirement of the folding medium is that it must be able to hold a crease, but should ideally also be thinner than regular paper for convenience when multiple folds over the same small paper area are required (e.g. such as would be the case if creating an origami bird's "legs", "feet", and "beak").
Kami, or koiy paper, is the cheapest paper made specifically for origami, and the most widely available. It was developed for use in schools. [1] The word kami is simply Japanese for paper, but it has acquired this specific meaning. [1] [2]
Kami is thin and easy to fold. It is usually printed only on one side, with a solid color or pattern. These patterns can be as simple as a gradation from red to blue, or as complex as a multi-colored kimono pattern of flowers and cranes with gold foil embellishments. Kami comes in several sizes, but standard sizes include 75 × 75 mm (about 3 × 3 inches), 6-inch squares and 10-inch squares.
This medium is a slightly more expensive, flashier, paper that is good for retaining creases called paper-backed foil paper, Japanese foil, or simply foil. Foil paper is composed of a thin layer of foil adhered to an extremely thin sheet of paper. The most common colors are silver and gold, but any color is possible in foil paper including bright pink, blue and copper. In many multi-color packs, one sheet each of silver and gold paper is included. These are usually placed on the bottom end of the string if used in a thousand origami cranes.
Washi is traditionally a fine handmade thin paper coveted by artists and craftspeople. Washi is made with renewable long-fibered crops and is very strong even when thin. Some washi does not hold a sharp fold due to the extremely long and thick fibers of the paper. Occasionally you will find strands of the long fibers (often kozo) in washi. Washi is also accepting of ink, making it easy to print on as it holds very fine detail. Printed washi has a unique and occasionally transparent texture. Washi paper is not as commonly used as kami paper in origami.
Chiyogami refers to Japanese hand-screened decorative kozo washi / paper consisting of repetitive patterns. In Japan “Chiyo” means 1,000 Generations & “-Gami” means paper. Originally the design was applied to handmade kozo paper with wood blocks, but today most chiyogami is produced with silkscreen techniques. [3]
Paper was one of the major materials used in making toys and dolls. The brightly printed chino-gami of Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto and the crisp strength of newly laid kozo paper were fully utilized. Many urban housewives and girls with the spare time for a hobby have taken up the making of sophisticated paper dolls and figurines – both traditional and modern – and provide a steady and major market for the makers of highly decorative colored papers. [4]
Banknotes may be used to fold models as well. Banknotes are common media for folding as the subject in the obverse of the banknote can make a striking appearance on the finished model.
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Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding. In modern usage, the word "origami" is often used as an inclusive term for all folding practices, regardless of their culture of origin. The goal is to transform a flat square sheet of paper into a finished sculpture through folding and sculpting techniques. Modern origami practitioners generally discourage the use of cuts, glue, or markings on the paper. Origami folders often use the Japanese word kirigami to refer to designs which use cuts.
The Yoshizawa–Randlett system is a diagramming system used to describe the folds of origami models. Many origami books begin with a description of basic origami techniques which are used to construct the models. There are also a number of standard bases which are commonly used as a first step in construction. Models are typically classified as requiring low, intermediate or high skill depending on the complexity of the techniques involved in the construction.
The discipline of origami or paper folding has received a considerable amount of mathematical study. Fields of interest include a given paper model's flat-foldability, and the use of paper folds to solve mathematical equations up to the third order.
Rice paper is a product constructed of paper-like materials made from different plants. These include:
Security printing is the field of the printing industry that deals with the printing of items such as banknotes, cheques, passports, tamper-evident labels, security tapes, product authentication, stock certificates, postage stamps, and identity cards. The main goal of security printing is to prevent forgery, tampering, or counterfeiting. More recently many of the techniques used to protect these high-value documents have become more available to commercial printers, whether they are using the more traditional offset and flexographic presses or the newer digital platforms. Businesses are protecting their lesser-value documents such as transcripts, coupons and prescription pads by incorporating some of the features listed below to ensure that they cannot be forged or that alteration of the data cannot occur undetected.
Washi (和紙) is traditional Japanese paper processed by hand using fibers from the inner bark of the gampi tree, the mitsumata shrub, or the paper mulberry (kōzo) bush.
Wasōbon is a traditional book style in Japan that dates from the late eighth century AD with the printing of "Hyakumantō Darani" during the reign of Empress Shōtoku. Most of the books were hand-copied until the Edo period (1603–1867), when woodblock printing became comparatively affordable and widespread. Movable-type printing had been used from the late 16th century, but for various aesthetic and practical reasons woodblock printing and hand-copied remained dominant until much later. Japanese equivalents for "book" include 本 (hon) and 書籍 (shoseki). The former term indicates only bound books, and does not include scrolls. The latter is used for printed matter only. The most general term is 書物 (shomotsu), which means all written or printed matter that has been collected into a single unit, regardless of construction.
Gyotaku is the traditional Japanese method of printing fish, a practice which dates back to the mid-1800s. This form of nature printing, where ink is applied to a fish which is then pressed onto paper, was used by fishermen to record their catches, but has also become an art form of its own.
The history of origami followed after the invention of paper and was a result of paper's use in society. In the detailed Japanese classification, origami is divided into stylized ceremonial origami and recreational origami, and only recreational origami is generally recognized as origami. However, this page describes the history of both ceremonial and recreational origami.
Papercutting or paper cutting is the art of paper designs. Art has evolved all over the world to adapt to different cultural styles. One traditional distinction most styles share is that the designs are cut from a single sheet of paper as opposed to multiple adjoining sheets as in collage.
The crane is considered a mystical or holy creature in Japan and is said to live for a thousand years. That is why one thousand origami cranes are made, one for each year. In some stories, it is believed that the cranes must be completed within one year and they must all be made by the person who will make the wish at the end.
Japanese tissue is a thin, strong paper made from vegetable fibers. Japanese tissue may be made from one of three plants, the kōzo plant, the mitsumata shrub and the gampi tree. The long, strong fibers of the kōzo plant produce very strong, dimensionally stable papers, and are the most commonly used fibers in the making of Japanese paper (washi). Tissue made from kōzo, or kōzogami (楮紙), comes in varying thicknesses and colors, and is an ideal paper to use in the mending of books. The majority of mending tissues are made from kōzo fibers, though mitsumata and gampi papers also are used. Japanese tissue is also an ideal material for kites and the covering of airplane models.
Kawasaki's theorem or Kawasaki–Justin theorem is a theorem in the mathematics of paper folding that describes the crease patterns with a single vertex that may be folded to form a flat figure. It states that the pattern is flat-foldable if and only if alternatingly adding and subtracting the angles of consecutive folds around the vertex gives an alternating sum of zero. Crease patterns with more than one vertex do not obey such a simple criterion, and are NP-hard to fold.
Rigid origami is a branch of origami which is concerned with folding structures using flat rigid sheets joined by hinges. That is, unlike in traditional origami, the panels of the paper cannot be bent during the folding process; they must remain flat at all times, and the paper only folded along its hinges. A rigid origami model would still be foldable if it was made from glass sheets with hinges in place of its crease lines.
Postage stamp paper is the foundation or substrate of the postage stamp to which the ink for the stamp's design is applied to one side and the adhesive is applied to the other. The paper is not only the foundation of the stamp but it has also been incorporated into the stamp's design, has provided security against fraud and has aided in the automation of the postal delivery system.
Paper toys are constructed in several ways, by folding, as in paper airplanes, paper fortune tellers or Origami, or by cutting, decorating or assembling pieces of paper with glue or tape to create a paper doll or paper model.
Edgeworthia chrysantha is a plant in the family Thymelaeaceae.
The orizuru, origami crane or paper crane, is a design that is considered to be the most classic of all Japanese origami. In Japanese culture, it is believed that its wings carry souls up to paradise, and it is a representation of the Japanese red-crowned crane, referred to as the "Honourable Lord Crane" in Japanese culture. It is often used as a ceremonial wrapper or restaurant table decoration. A thousand orizuru strung together is called senbazuru (千羽鶴), meaning "thousand cranes", and it is said that if someone folds a thousand cranes, they are granted one wish.
Maekawa's theorem is a theorem in the mathematics of paper folding named after Jun Maekawa. It relates to flat-foldable origami crease patterns and states that at every vertex, the numbers of valley and mountain folds always differ by two in either direction. The same result was also discovered by Jacques Justin and, even earlier, by S. Murata.
Moneygami is the shaping of paper currency, such as Indian rupees or United States dollars, into pieces of art. The word is a portmanteau of money and origami.
