When I visited Kyoto this winter, the city was a city of camellias. It was January, and the icy wind came straight down from the frosted mountains; it was raw cold; bitter.
But often along the quiet, sunlit lanes were hedges of bright cerise camellias, their glossy leaves creating interesting shadows on ancient walls.
I sat in the warm, cosy shadows of a small shrine chashitsu with Mai for tea ceremony, and in the tokonoma behind the kneeling guests, hung a bamboo on the wall, and deep in its pocket in front of a spray of green was tsubaki - camellia.
We had earlier waited in the entrance, signing our names into a washi paper booklet using a brush-pen and sumi ink, kneeling on tatami beneath a scroll on the wall which featured an artwork of tsubaki.
It was a lot like the one pictured above, which hung in the tokonoma where I enjoyed tea and a sweet, overlooking the beautiful sunlit garden of Murin-an, after a morning class learning about Noh.
Camellias were everywhere, in the teahouses where sweets were brought to the table to choose from.
They were gloriously poking above garden walls of private houses and temples.
And in the ancient shrine of Jōnan-gū, there is a collection of camellias, many different types, some in flower, and some waiting for warmth. Many of the camellias lining the pathways were connected to The Tale of Genji, and together with the beautiful Heian garden there, this delighted me!
Tsubaki are a beloved flower in Japan, symbolising self-reflection and inner strength, which is an appropriate way to begin the new year. Camellias also symbolise love, and loyalty, and humility - perhaps it is easy to see why these beautiful winter flowers welcome friends, families, and guests all over Kyoto.
One Hundred Camellias
Last year, Yukki gave me a beautifully illustrated Japanese book called One Hundred Camellias. It's attributed to Kanō Sanraku, the talented 17th century painter and one-time head of the renowned Kanō School of Painting.
The artwork is glorious: camellias in all their riotous stripes and colours gathered up in baskets, lacquerware trays, or tied in bunches with flowing ribbons.
What astonished me most are the large tied furoshiki cradling copious blooms; the small furoshiki wrapping camellia posies, or concertina-folded hiding a single flower.
You'll understand why I wanted to try and recreate these with our own furoshiki!
Origami Camellia
As I've learned to make more and more origami, I've found a camellia design which is slightly more complex than the designs I've covered in our popular How-to blogs before. I think we're ready for this!
As usual, if you choose not to make them yourself (we have many beautiful origami in our online Zusetsu store), we are listing them in-store for you to buy from us, hand-made. You can find them here!
Let's get started!
In our packs of Large Chiyogami origami papers, each patterned paper is nestled between plain colour sheets of washi paper to protect it. We can use these plain coloured papers to create the yellow stamens, and the green leaves, of our tsubaki camellia.
What you will need
One 15x15cm patterned chiyogami (origami) paper
One 15x15cm plain paper in yellow.
One 15x15cm plain paper in green.
5 paperclips
Paper glue
Scissors
Take your large piece of green washi paper and fold it into quarters. Cut out one quarter. This will be the square that you use for your camellia leaves (see photo above).
The paper square measures 7.5cm x 7.5cm.
Take your large piece of yellow washi paper and fold it in half. Fold it in half again lengthways, and then fold it once more, so that when the paper is unfolded you have 8 long, thin folds of paper. You will need to cut out one strip which will later be made into the camellia stamens (see photo above). The paper strip will measure 15cm long by about 1.8cm.
TOP TIP: make a practise camellia first using same-size rough paper!
Making the camellia flower
1) Turn your 15cm x 15cm patterned paper over so that the white side is showing, and it is in a square shape.
2) Fold the paper in half to make a rectangle.
3) Take hold of the bottom left corner, and bring it so that the whole edge runs along the top of the folded rectangle paper. Don't make a crease all the way along - just crease it a little in the centre, like this. Unfold again so you are back to your folded rectangle.
I'm using a chopstick simply so I can keep the paper in place so that I can show you!
4) Now take the top corner, and do the same thing: run the whole edge along the bottom edge of the folded rectangle, and make a crease in the centre.
5)When you unfold the paper to your folded rectangle shape, you can see a cross made from the creases, on the left side.
6) Take the bottom right corner of your folded rectangle, and place it in the creased cross that you made on the left side. Crease the paper where it folds on the right.
7) Take hold of the corner on the left side of this fold, and place the whole edge so that it runs along the paper edge below it. It will look like a kite shape, like this.
8) Now take the corner on the bottom right of your folded rectangle, and place it so the whole edge runs along the edge of the folded kite shape, like this.
Make a crease in the fold on the left.
9) Then, turn the paper over.
10) Fold the shape so that the whole of the left edge matches on top of the right edge. It should look like this. If you look at your folded shape, you will see from the point there is a triangle.
The chopstick is pointing to the top line of the triangle.
11) Using your scissors, cut along the top of this triangle, to make a triangle shape. Discard the excess paper.
12) Unfold your triangle shape, and lay the revealed pentagon face down (white-side-up) on the table.
13) You now want to fold the bottom straight edge of your pentagon up onto the centre point, so that it lies with its centre crease running with the centre line below it on the paper.
14) Crease the fold in your paper and unfold it, then rotate your pentagon to the left, and repeat. Fold the bottom line up to the centre point, with the central crease following the same straight vertical line as the paper beneath it.
Do all 5 sides in the same way.
15)Lay out your pentagon again so that there is a straight edge at the bottom. Note the creased flap that has been made at the bottom, and the creased flap that has been made on the right of the pentagon. You want to crease both of these flaps again, lifting them both so that a paper point is formed shooting outwards.
16) Carefully bring the two edges of the point together, and crease it and lay it on its side to the left. It should look like this.
17) Rotate the paper so that the next edge is straight on the table. Push in the edge on the right until a paper point is formed shooting outwards. Carefully gather the two sides together, crease, and lay it down to the left.
Repeat with the next edge, laying the point to the left.
18) The final edge will create two points, one each side of the folded edge. Gather the points carefully, crease them, and lay them pointing towards the left, just like before.
You have created a paper wheel that looks like this.
19) Now, you take one of the flaps and open it - it will look like a boat shape. In the centre is a crease. With your scissors, snip just over half-way up this crease following the centre crease line.
20) Refold the flap, rotate the paper and repeat: unfolding the new flap, making the snip on the centre line, refolding the flap, and rotating the paper wheel. Continue until all 5 sides are completed.
21) Now, raise a flap again, and this time create a pocket from the paper. Press the paper down and you will create a rudimentary petal shape. Make sure you position the point in the centre of the paper wheel, and press both sides of your petal to complete the shape.
22) Repeat this process in rotation on all 5 sides. You will have 5 rudimentary petal shapes.
Make sure that all of the folds fall in the same direction.
23) Now, turn your camellia over. Each rear petal needs to have its top two sides folded towards the centre.
24) When all of the petals have been folded, your flower will look like this!
25) Turn your flower back over, and fold a little triangle under each half of each petal. It will look like this.
The chopstick is pointing to the size of the little triangle fold you need to make, but this will be folded underneath.
Make sure that all of your petals still overlap in the same direction.
26) Now, you are going to give your camellia a lovely bowl-shape, using glue and paperclips.
It will end up looking like this :)
27) Where one petal overlaps another, you are going to adjust the lower edge of a top petal so that it aligns with the centre crease of the petal underneath.
The upper petal will have the glue on it, and the under petal will be sandwiched between its two parts.
Glue these two parts together and secure with a paperclip.
Make sure the 5 petals overlap in the same way, just like in the photo above.
Repeat the process for all 5 petals.
Leave your camellia to dry :)
28) Now you are going to make the final flower shape of your camellia!
Follow this method:
29) Turn your paper over, where all the little folded triangles are. Glue the paper then press the little triangles onto the paper underneath.
30) Fold the point in half, and put some glue on the bottom half.
31) Now, re-fold the glued point, and secure it with a paperclip.
32) Repeat this process of gluing the side triangles, folding them in half, gluing them in place, and securing with a paperclip.
When you have done all 5 petals and turn your solid little flower over, it will look like this!
33) Now, leave your camellia flower to dry :)
Making the Stamens
1) Meanwhile, you can make the stamens using the narrow strip of yellow paper that you prepared earlier.
2) All you need to do, is fold your yellow paper in half lengthways, like this.
3) Fold it again widthways.
4) Now, using your scissors, snip evenly along your paper right to the end, leaving a seam of uncut paper at the top.
5) Unfold the paper widthways, and then glue the uncut edge.
6) Roll the glued paper seam until you have rolled all of the paper.
7) Gently press on the top of the paper cuts, to make them look like stamens.
8) Remove all of the paperclips from your camellia, and carefully glue the little roll of yellow stamens into the centre of the flower. Just like this :)
Making the Leaves
1) Take your 7.5cm square green paper which you prepared earlier. Have the roughest side facing upwards, in a diamond shape.
2) Fold the green paper upwards, making a triangle.
3) Fold the triangle in half, then unfold back to the folded triangle.
4) Take the right corner and place the edge along the centre crease. Crease the fold.
5) Repeat on the left side, taking the left edge and placing it along the centre line. Crease the fold and then undo both sides, so that you have your triangle again.
6) Take the right corner of your triangle, and fold it at the point so that the creased line (where the chopstick is pointing to in the photo) follows the centre line underneath it.
7) Now take the corner on the left of the fold, and run the edge along the right edge.
8) Gently begin to unfold the pocket like this...
9) ...and press it flat into a leaf shape.
10) Now, shape a little triangular fold into each side of the leaf.
Do this by folding one half of the leaf along its crease, and folding a little triangle where the side corner is.
If you then fold the whole leaf over onto its other side, you can make the second triangle the same size!
Your leaf will look like this.
11) Now, you will make the second leaf.
Take the right edge and fold it so that the crease runs centrally like the one on the paper below it, like this.
12)Pick up the corner that has been folded to the right, and fold it back on itself so that the edge runs along the paper edge below it. It will look like this.
13) Now, create a pocket...
14) ...and press it into a second leaf shape.
15) Shape a little triangular fold into each side of the leaf, like you did before.
16) Now, turn your paper over.
17) At the top in the centre is a paper point. Take hold of this point and fold it so that the point matches the lowest point. Crease the paper.
18) You will see a new central shape in your paper behind the paper you just folded.
Imagine a diagonal line from the bottom left of this shape, to the right corner of this shape.
Make a fold here, and press the little triangle shape that appears on the left, flat.
19) Tuck this paper behind the folded triangle, and re-press the little triangle edges.
20) Turn the paper over, and re-crease the leaf edges and their centres a little, to give them some definition.
Your leaves are ready! You can glue them to the back of your camellia flower if you would like to!
It's a really impressive little flower, isn't it! I hope you've enjoyed making it.
Don't forget, if you would rather I do all the gluing and folding, we have a listing for our
Origami Camellias in our Zusetsu store here:
And you can find the 15cm square chiyogami papers here:
Cathy
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Sources
The origami method is by talented Youtuber hiroko daichan origami. ありがとうございました。
Lovely and very interesting!