Easy Origami Dog
For my Digital Culture Project #1: Maker Project, I wanted to try origami for the first time. A quick google search led me to stumble across the website Origami Way and I found the written and visual instructions to an easy origami dog here. I thought the process was going to be easy because the instructions had pictures and words. However, there were some little steps I had to take beforehand. Since I didn’t own a square piece of origami paper, I had to make do with a rectangular piece of copy paper. I then turned this rectangle into a square by following the instructions offered on the website. It was easy to decipher that these instructions were intended for a beginner audience because the author wasn’t expecting you to own a square piece of origami paper and allowed you to achieve a square sheet by linking instructions on the very first step. When I was trying to make my square sheet I found it really annoying that it wasn’t until the end that it mentioned anything about needing scissors. It took me ten minutes just to find a pair of scissors to make my square sheet. Other than that, the instructions and visual aids were really straight forward. Something that I enjoyed about the instructions was that they were easy to follow. The instructions weren’t paragraphs. Making an origami dog consisted of eight easy steps and these steps only consisted of about one sentence worth of text.
If the instructions would have consisted of paragraphs and no pictures it would have been overwhelming. Moreover, I realized that the instructions didn’t emphasize perfection even when it came to the folds. I personally don’t think that folding my paper perfectly would have made a difference. After making my square sheet of paper I only made five folds. Then I proceeded to draw the face in.
I completed the process of making the origami dog twice. The first time I was paying really close attention to the instructions and going back and forth with the visual aids. It was almost as if I was over thinking myself. The second time around I didn’t have to look at the instructions or the visual aids. I just went off of memory. I finished my origami dog much faster the second time. This reiterates the accessibility and feasibility of the instructions I was following. There was no fancy vocabulary. Neither did the instructions warrant that I have any previous exposure or experience to origami. It’s great because the less frustrated you are about the process in making something new, the more likely you are to want to do it again. Which I did! I wish more instructions were like the ones I had for the origami dog.
I think I followed the instructions well. My origami dog didn’t look identical to the one depicted on the website, but it was a dog nonetheless. My final product looked great! If I were to improve the instructions, I would want to add “gather the following materials…” to the first step just because it’s a hassle to interrupt the process of making origami. This happened not only for the scissors, but I needed to find a marker or pen to draw in the eyes and nose. Additionally, I would have liked to have a different color dog and this would have been made easier with a different colored paper instead of having to color in my origami dog with crayons.
