Anne's Origami Blog

More than you want to know about Yoshizawa Mice

Created by: YOSHIZAWA Akira

Published in: Sosaku Origami (Creative Origami)

Finally got to taking pictures of the details of forming the feet on the mouse from Sosaku Origami (Creative Origami).

This is the main modifiction to the model; you leave a big chunk of paper inside the body when you do the series of reverse folds to separate the body and tail. I found I needed the first one - that defines the mouse’s rump - to be nearly perpendicalar to the main belly edge.

Another view of the modification.

Another view from the bottom; to separate the front feet, I’ve folded a reverse fold into the innermost, forward corner, and then folded the sides of the legs in. The hind legs are simple pleats of the points.

A slightly different view, and you can see that I’ve adjusted the tail out of the way so the piece can stand.

Comparison with the original mouse model. The whole mouse ends up a bit chunkier, since you have to use paper from both the body and the tail to make the legs. I like them both, but I still prefer the original, I think.

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Wee knitted hats make a flapping bird

My origami friend Dennis Walker (He Who Runs the OrigamiDatabase) posted this online, and on the O-list, but I couldn’t resist posting it here too. It made me laugh outloud.

Only a real origami fan would create crazy little details like the Wee Hats carefully reinforcing each crease after they fold it; and watch carefully when they do the birdbase and the poor hapless Hat who went inside to open it up gets trapped.

Hilarious, if in a seriously origami-geeky way. I should know, eh?

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Yoshizawa Mouse Survey

Created by: YOSHIZAWA Akira

Published in: various publications (see details)

Why: Someone asked on the O-list about any mice by Akira Yoshizawa that had four legs. Having folded a couple of Yoshizawa mice that I liked a lot (and taught one, with permission, at an OrigamiUSA convention a number of years ago), I thought I’d do a survey of the Yoshizawa mice that I could find, and here they are.

Starting at the lower right and going counter-clockwise around the image, they are:

from Inochi Yutaka na Origami (Origami Full of Life) (mouse 1)

from Sosaku Origami (Creative Origami) (mouse 2)

from Oru 11 (mouse 3 and mouse 4)

from Oru 11, OrigamiUSA Annual Collection 2000, Akira Yoshizawa ORIGAMI (Exhibition Catalog), Paperart: The Art of Sculpting with Paper, Origami Hakubutsushi 1 (Origami Museum 1), Origami Museum I: Animals (mouse 5)

My favorite: Mouse 2 from “Sosaku Origami”. Mouse 1 from “Inochi…” was a very close second. I was less enthusiastic about the various actual-legged ones.

And the ubiquitous mouse - the one in 6 of the books - is also pretty nice, but definitely works best from wetfolded, thicker paper, or at least softer sheet (e.g. handmade paper or washi), dry folded. And it is incredibly sensitive to the angles you choose when folding the head (there’s some leeway in an early fold that, in typical Yoshizawa-model fashion, has profound effects on the later geometry…)

All the models benefit from folding them multiple times as you start to internalize the proportions, and all work well wet-folded as well!

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