Chapter 4. Cut & Fold Shapes in Black Paper

Wow! What an addictive activity!

Because I'd cut dozens of 10x10 black squares, I wasn't inhibited or afraid to waste paper. One or two shapes were disappointing, some fell into tiny fragments of paper because I'd made the cuts in the wrong places, but on the whole it was fascinating to see how many different designs could be derived from one basic shape simply by distorting the cut shape slightly, or folding and cutting in different arrangements.

To begin with, I started off by making very minor adjustments to the proportions of the 'arrow-head' shape, keeping the folding pattern constant.

This in itself produced some very different and varied results, particularly with the positive/negative spaces.

As I started to vary the angles and distort the shape slightly, and also to experiment with different folding patterns, some very exciting patterns started to appear.

no.9 seemed to have a sort of 'tudor timber' architectural feel to it, which interestingly relates back to my favourite shapes in the previous exercise.

I love the dynamic, angular, 'springy' sort of feel to no.14, and also the Aztec appearance of no.15. I liked the geometric patterning of no.8 so much that I decided to try it with a little distortion of the basic cutting shape, and was amazed at how different the end result was.