Online Origami Videos for Learning the Art of Paper Folding: Simple Starts

Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding. Through it, you can enliven your surroundings with just a piece of paper. The skill can make you friends at any gathering and gain the admiration of kids. This collection of simple designs is arranged in order of increasing complexity.

© 2012 by Aurelio Locsin.

Here’s a figure that’s easy enough for a kid to do, as you can tell from the instructor. This video shows typical origami paper, which has a colored side and a white side. Most craft, book and Japanese stores carry the material. Though most origami only shows the colored side, this one uses the white part to good effect.

Using white paper, professional artist Robert Segundo shows how to make two simple origami airplanes.

• In the first one, he calls out some of the more common folds, which will be useful for more complex creations.
• In the second, he uses stiffer and larger paper for a more impressive construction that is ideal for flying outdoors.

You and several friends can make your own jumping frogs out of index cards, and then have a race. This professionally produced video features voice instructions, subtitles and background music. You may want to use a pen to draw eyes on the head. Writing a name or a design on the frog’s back helps distinguish one from the other if you’re all using index cards of the same color.

This video is from an origami DVD, though it’s not quite as slick as the previous one. But several of these designs can decorate a vase or dining table, especially if you use papers of different colors. Try poking some sharp sticks or branches at the bottom to use as a stem. The origami stem is only available on the DVD.

This is a little bit more complex but still doable for the beginner. All the preliminaries are necessary for the more intricate folds later on. Try this with patterned paper for a more colorful creation. The artist, Japanzor, has other origami videos, of varying complexity. Click the Videos tab near the top under the title to view a list.

If you try any of these designs, please let me know in the Comments field below how it went. You can also take poll.