I have dabbled in origami since I was a young lad - I believe I first saw some in a Rupert Bear annual and was fascinated.
I then bought 'New Adventures in Origami' (aka 'Origami 2') by Robert Harbin, and began leaving piles of little paper models scattered around the house.
Although I have enjoyed making origami models over the years, I only ever created one design myself. It was a baby penguin, and I came upon it through doodling.
Recently I decided to have another go at designing an origami model.
I started by doodling, but got nowhere - lots of interesting shapes, but nothing that looked like anything.
Ideally, what I wanted was a simple model (these are often the most pleasing), one that represented something significant to me, one that had some 3D element to it, and one that I designed rather than happened upon by accident.
What I came up with is a meditating figure that sits up with legs outwards. It is a simple model, with only 14 steps and no difficult folds (only valley, mountain and reverse folds). I am very pleased with it.
The process of creating instructions (available here: Origami Meditator Instructions) for the model was surprisingly involved.
The technical nature of the task, which involved precision, clarity, consistency and careful planning, appealed to many aspects of my personality.
_t.jpg "Performance (Purple and Pink)")
