Mutant Cranes

Everyone needs a coffee break at work from time to time to relieve some of the stress of deadlines, little daily frustrations of the workplace and people wanting things from you in general.
My supervisor and I have recently taken to folding origami during our coffee breaks. I am infinitely lucky that my hobby-verging-on-obsession is tolerated where I work. My supervisor is wonderful, and always wants to learn new models with me. She also recently started her own blog called Fold and Learn where she sometimes uses origami with her students to teach them writing.

While she was practicing her cranes, she accidentally came up with a few...variations. There were clearly flaws in her technique, and she probably missed/added a few steps. But these little guys came out so cute! I took it upon myself to study these mutant cranes and try to figure out how she got such strange results. My aim was to be able to reproduce these little oddities exactly, without unfolding or damaging them.

To quote the creator of these blundering birds, "sometimes an accident can create something new and interesting."

Introducing the Mutant Cranes!

From left to right: Proud Crane (her favorite), Hunchback Crane and Box Crane

Here are my reproductions of these amazing cranes.


Box Crane

Hunchback Crane

This was pretty easy to figure out.

Proud Crane

This was the closest I could get it to looking like the original.
Mine is not so proud. I guess accidents only happen once.

Check out a cool post on Fold and Learn: Mistakes: A Recipe for Creativity.