The Origami Forum

Hey everybody Im new here as you can see, and this forum looks real kool and everyone is friendly. Well to get into my question. If anyone lives in New York and visits chinatown often they may know what I'm going to be talking about. I have seen a kind of Origami(I'm sure thats not wut its called) done but with grass or stalk Im not sure myself what to call the material. Theres an asian guy around Mott street who is always selling little folded animals and I never get to see him fold anything but the outcome looks great. Does anyone know exactly what this is called, and maybe where I can get the material and some instructions? Thank you for taking the time to read my post and for any responses.

Welcome to the forum . There are a few types of leaf folding that I know of, so grass folding (it could also be weaving) wouldn't be too far off. Tanteidan magazine no. 67 has an article on "Yashi-no-Ha Ori" or palm leaf folding, and had a follow up article in no. 69 (I don't have that issue though, so I'm not sure what is in it). It doesn't include any diagrams in no. 67, but it shows a picture of a star and a bird folded from the palm leaves. There is also an instance of leaf folding in Eric Kenneway's Complete Origami, its only one page but it includes a diagram for a leaf boat and flower doll. I believe I have seen a grasshopper made from two leaves in one of my books somewhere, the stems of the leaf became the antennae.

After a quick internet search I found this: http://www25.brinkster.com/waldentoons/ ... hopper.htm its somewhat close to what I have seen in one of my books. I've also found this: http://www2.jsonline.com/lifestyle/peop ... 041600.asp which has some palm leaf folding diagrams, the fish at the bottom was taught in origami form at the OUSA 2004 convention. Hopefully that helps some, asking the person who makes them what the art is called or how they learned it could also give you some more internet search leads. I'll let you know if I find out anything else.

i was taught how to make a little boat from marsh grass you like bend about 1 cm of the end of the grass and wrap the rest arount it then you put the other end through the middle to make a sail

Thank you both very much for the replies. I went down to chinatown today to pick up some Christmas gifts and I decided I would pick up one of the animals he made. I tried talking to him about it but his english isnt very good at all and thats the only language I speak. He was able to tell me it was made with leaves. It looks kind of like banana leaves. He also has them in different colors such as orangy red. His sign says 'Grass Arts' so thats as close to a name for it as I can come. Here are two pictures so everyone can see exactly what I'm talking about and hopefully can further help me. And to Joe The White thanx for the welcome, and u were right, it is more like weaving.

Here are the pics:

[img]http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/2120/picture139vj7.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/8162/picture141gb7.jpg[/img]

wow thats kinda cool

Glad I could help. Its beautiful, more complex than any others I've seen. Finding out the name for the art may be hard, its most likely in spanish, portugese, or chinese. You could try translating palm frond folding/weaving, leaf folding/weaving, and grass arts into those languages to start.

I still havent been able to figure out what this exact art is. Does anyone know another good origami forum maybe I should ask there also. Im very interested in learning how to do this kind of art. Thanx for the help. This is a beautiful piece, he had more complex pieces but they were out of my budget.

It reminds me a lot of Makramé and Scoubidou.
These techniques are used on different materials but I think they are what you are searching for, especially some of the Scoubidou animals I´ve seen are very equal to the bird in the above picture.
Unfortunately the Wikipedia articles are written very cryptic, but I´m sure a google-search will yield in some useful results.
Example/Example

It might also be related to Mizuhiki, but done with leaf pieces instead of paper cords/strips.

Thats quite interesting and very nice art! It kind of reminds me of the deadsmellbad's wire bending scorpion.