Young Pinoy Artists Festival 2016

When Pinoy Stop launched an art exhibit featuring works of Pinoy kids, I wondered if my son Jo-Lo would be interested in participating.  He is actually good at arts and crafts, but he's been spending more time on Minecraft lately so I was not particularly sure.  I floated the idea to him, but it wasn't until a couple of weeks before the deadline that he said he wanted to join.  I made a couple of visits to the art store for acrylic paint, various bits of paper and we were off!

Jo-Lo made a total of 5 artworks.  3 are paper weaving types which is reminiscent of the banig, the woven mats used for sleeping in the rural areas.  Two were of a simple pattern, with a third giving him more challenge as it was more intricate and and had a bigger base. His other artwork was a Christmas lantern where he used eggshells and acrylic.  And lastly, he painted a pop art of his favourite fast food chain Jollibee.

My kind of tagging

"Tagging" is the local term in New Zealand for vandalism.  This is a prevalent problem here, and a number of measures have been taken to curb this, such as imposing an age limit to those who buy spray paint, and meting punishment to those caught in the act.

There is, however, another form of tagging that's eliciting more positive than negative responses, and it involves yarn.  They call it graffiti knitting.  Instead of defacing public property with paint spray (and getting the general ire of the public), graffiti knitting is given a lot more thought to how the knitted pattern is made and placed.  In a sense it's still defacing public property, but in a cute and fun sort of way.

Optical Illusion: Looking right at you!

I love optical illusions. Just when you see something that looks plain as day, you do a double-take and notice that there's something more than meets the eye!

Take this dragon, for example. Stand back a couple of meters away and stare at it and it stares back at you. With your eyes still on the dragon, move to your left, then to your right. The dragon does not lose its sight on you! There's no special mechanism in it, all you need are cardboard paper, a colored printer, a pair of scissors, and some paste or glue.

Look at my pet dragon at the office... staring at me. Perhaps in bewilderment due to my desk clutter.

I move off to the left, and its eyes and head follow me! Okay, okay! I'll clean up my desk pronto!

The first step is to get the pattern. This is free to download from any of the following sites:
Great Things on the web
Pinwire - video of the dragon included

Then, simply print the pattern onto your cardboard paper, cut it out, then build the structure by following the mountain and valley-fold instructions. You should get this result:


The illusion is best experienced when the dragon is illuminated from behind and below it so the head gets lighted up. Try it! Simple fun.

The Gathering for Gardner is a non-profit organization whose goal is to promote the lucid exposition and discussion of new ideas in recreational mathematics, magic, puzzles, and philosophy. This dragon was made to commemmorate the third conference.

Origa-me

Ever since our Aunt Linda taught us how to make paper cranes one grade school night by our double-deck, I have become fascinated with the art of paper folding. After the paper crane came boats which helped while the time away in the rainy afternoons. Puppets, planes, and lots more took form from plain scraps of paper.

I guess that fascination has never left me. My wife bought me a wonderful Origami book in the past Book Fair, and I bought art paper for just the stuff.

Last Christmas, the kids and I made butterflies and stars, the former adorning our walls and the latter making our window view colorful and bright. Then, I made a series of decorative balls which we hung by the doorway.
Last Christmas, I also asked from our Kris Kringle office some Origami books. It was obviously quite easy to identify who made that request, as evidenced by the scribbled messages on my request list: "Nick, is that you?" hahaha!

But my request was granted. Not just for one book, but for two! Thanks Janice and Dave!
Both books came from Fully Booked. This one also contains beautifully-patterned origami paper and a crane aside from the book! Wonderful present.
The models in this one looks more tricky to fold....

This is my simple pleasure.

I am actually on the lookout for photo frames that has enough space between the glass panel and the backboard for framing origami work. I have been unsuccessful so far. If you know where such frames are bought, I will appreciate a holler!

What about you? How do you origami?