Water Bomb
All the projects I have made in the past have been basic one piece of paper projects or modular origami. I thought that this was all that you could do with origami. But recently, I discovered origami tessellations. Origami tessellations are complex origami designs made of one piece of paper where you make pleats in a piece of paper so that the paper interlocks and a design forms. I was intrigued by the amazing resulting projects and wanted to try out this art for myself. So, I found a book on tessellations called Origami Tessellations: Awe-Inspiring Geometric Designs, by Eric Gjerde. And they were awe-inspiring, indeed! I couldn’t wait to try out some of these breathtaking projects.
When you start out on a new art form, you can’t immediately jump to the hardest projects, so I decided to start with a very simple project. The Water Bomb tessellation didn’t require any pleats, just creases in the paper to make it hold a shape. It was made up of several tiny water bomb bases, which I knew how to make. Seeing the finished project made me feel so happy and accomplished inside.
Making this tessellation project required a lot of patience. You had to make every crease perfect, and the creases were repetitive. Just making one crease in the wrong place can mess up your whole project. But you just have to keep trying until you succeed. You should also start with very easy projects. I would recommend this tessellation project to any beginner in tessellations, like me, to start off with.
Since this project didn’t require any pleating, I had to paperclip the project together overnight so that the creases in the paper would stay. This is a picture of what the paper clipped project looked like:
Front View
Back View
