A deep dive into and folded paper and copyright

The poster child of this project is the actual origami design that will become the poppy. Previously I said when I first tried to make an origami poppy there was nothing online, well it appears that has changed. A search on Google reveals there is a whole bunch of origami poppy paraphernalia.

I also found my origami poppy that I made in 2009, I told you it has a way of making it self known when I need it—or the more truthful answer: I was cleaning my desk and I found it.

I have contrasted it with a proper poppy that you can buy around Remembrance Day, overlaid on my somewhat dirty keyboard.

Camellia

These origami poppies were not available when I wanted to make mine, so I had to choose a different design that I could fake as an poppy. The design I found was for a flower called camellia. The origami instructions are in the public domain as the design is listed as traditional and not copyright to any individual, which is useful. The design is not easy to build, but also not that complex, just very repetitive.

The camellia can look very similar to a poppy in real life.

Origami Poppy©

There is a website called Poppy Time devoted to learning activities related to poppies, and there is a section on origami poppies.

Looking at the designs the website links to we have one created by Katrin Shumakov on Oriland. Which looks allot like our camellia design from before, except this one is much more complex to build. Not ideal when the target audience will be children in primary school.

Another nice design is from Aileen Edwin.

I quite enjoy the look of these poppies, they look allot like the commercial ones you can buy. However, it is copyright and once again fairly complex.

There is another interesting one, that starts off with a hexagonal shaped piece of paper by Joost Langeveldor

Choosing the right design

I have an affinity for the original camellia design, even though its not technically a poppy, I think it has a nice geometric look and is reasonably easy to make. Crucially it has no copyright and is freely available in the public domain. I am starting to think I will need two designs available, on that is very easy to construct for the younger ones. The skill required for the camellia is low, but still high enough that I think it will be an issue with the younger students. I have been looking for flat origami flowers, but have not really found the right design that is both easy to build that also looks like a poppy. This Spanish Eye design comes close and might be the one I choose if I cannot find anything else.