WE MADE OUR OWN PAPER! We printed our abstract artworks to fill 8.5X11 pages to make the paper for this project.
The art of iris paper folding has appeared in many cultures
around the world. It dates to ancient Egypt, and also China, Japan and Ireland. The basic technique we used involved printing dark, medium and light-value images.
We cut the artwork prints into 1.5 inche strips lengthwise. After folding the strips in half lengthwise, the folds are laid along the lines of a pattern and secured to a cutout paper which serves as the background.
The folded strips overlap in the iris pattern.
The finished work is then flipped over and the pattern removed to
reveal a design reminescent of the closed iris of a camera lens. Our examples below are circles, but we have used patterns that create hearts,
pears, Christmas trees, rectangles and fans.
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What's unique about our interpretation of this project is that we make our own paper designs. We use our digital
artwork laser prints, cut into
strips and assembled. So our iris paperfolding art is truly original from start to finish!
Then the challenge becames: What to put in the center of the iris?
As you can see, each student came up with their own solution: mirrors, bows, crochet, dreamcatchers, or just colored paper. The very thin reflective strips are
tinfoil, which is hard to photograph, but very effective in the actual piece, accenting one path in the iris.
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