13: Paper Construction (not construction paper!)

13: Paper Construction (not construction paper!)

I love the work of paper engineers who can visualize in two dimensions what they want to make in three dimensions! (I can do it to a certain extent, but sometimes I just let nature take over – you can see what I mean in the short film at the bottom of this post).
Peter Callesen has an amazing ability at this sort of visualization. Spend a few minutes (or hours) on his website, and you’ll be thoroughly impressed!

Impenetrable Castle, by Peter Callesen


And by the way, Peter Callesen is the artist who made the cut-out tree at the bottom of yesterday’s post. Thanks to the two readers who drew that to my attention! (How funny, a few years ago someone was trying to identify his work, and I recognized it then!)
When I was a kid, you could buy punch-out books like this:

Tiny City press-out book


For Playing With Paper, I asked Kell Black to contribute a project, and he made a piece of paper cake. A template is included in the book, so you can make your own piece of cake to give to someone special on their birthday.

piece of cake, by Kell Black


Kell is quite experienced at constructing with paper. Check out his books – Paper London and Paper New York – and try your hand at building your own paper cities.

Paper London, by Kell Black


Coincidentally (or not) Kell also wrote the score for the music in my film Water Paper Time. Here’s the trailer for that film:

I tried my hand at paper construction on this artists’ book, called Sound Blocks. I love how the letters look in their flat, pre-folded state.




You can see the rest of the letters (there are only five) here.
What amazing paper constructions have you seen? Please share them with me by emailing or leaving me a comment below.
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About the 25 Days of Paper: I’m going to be a crazy blogger in December, featuring cool paper products, projects, blogs, books, or papers each day. Join in the fun by reading along! I’ll also post links on my FaceBook page. Enjoy the season!

1 Comment

  1. Linda says:

    I remember the press out books. We started there and created our own. Thanks for reminders of what we can do!