The Origami Forum

As is the case with most of these questions there is no definitive
right or wrong answer, but I am curious what other folders think of the following procedure.

You make an origami model that takes advantage of the paper being one color on one side and another color on the other side. But now suppose you fold the model from paper that is white on both sides and then paint all of one side that is showing one color and all of the other side that is showing another color.

When all is said and done you are getting the same result in terms of
color combintion as if you folded with paper which is different colors on each side.

Of course if someone paints a finished model two or more different colors
using any color scheme they feel like, that is a whole different question.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14908184@N04/

Sumaid

I'd say it depends if you add the colour before or after folding. Beforehand it would be paper preparation afterwards its cheating...

I personally think it is fine. It is just adding color, a visual effect, to the final product.

Sipho Mabona painted his rainbow stag with ink after folding. Eric Joisel also paints many of his models after folding them. His famous pangolin, for example. I folded Lang's flying ladybug from Origami Insects II from red Japanese foil-I colored the other side black with a marker (before folding), but left the wings area white. So now I have a ladybug with black legs/head/spots, red elytra, and white wings-it looks really good, so I am fine with it.

To me, origami is an art form and thus its point is not to impress people, but to be beautiful-others' impressions (ha pun) are just a side effect. Purism is a design restraint imposed to impress others, meet the designer's personal criteria for an acceptable origami design, for tradition's sake, or to limit the art strictly into the definition of origami (I am sure there are many other reasons, these are a few that I can think of right away). It can preclude cutting, using more than 1 sheet of paper, taping, coloring the paper, wet folding, using foil paper, using sizing/glue, using shapes of paper other than squares, certain folding techniques, the use of tools, etc. Some of these are more common (1 square, no cuts), and I think some degree of purism is helpful in designing and folding to limit the already broad scope of what you can do. But if it helps you achieve a better looking finished work and you aren't against it in principle, do it. Phew, another purism discussion (I love these ).