Designer winds up 100-day challenge

Poonam Savale’s origami skills mesmerise netizens

Origami models from her latest online challenge showcase animals in their real habitats. Credit: Special Arrangement

Poonam Savale. Credit: Special Arrangement

Origami models from her latest online challenge showcase animals in their real habitats. Credit: Special Arrangement

Poonam Savale, a UX designer, who took to origami in 2017, will conclude a unique challenge this weekend. Her striking designs have mesmerised many on Instagram.

The 31-year-old artist from Bengaluru, has been posting paper models of animals on her profile, since September. Her designs have been receiving encouraging feedback to shocked responses.

How it started

Five years ago, Poonam pursued learning origami as a New Year resolution. “The challenge then was focused on creating models of an animal or bird for 100 days straight,” she recollects.

Paper sculptures range from geometric to organic forms. “I am drawn towards the more organic ones that mimic life forms,” she says. There’s something magical about folding a single piece of paper and seeing it come to life, she adds.

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“After building basic skills, I continually challenged myself to fold more complex animal models to create realistic visuals,” she adds.

Recent challenge

How did the #100origamianimals challenge happen? Whenever Poonam picks up a skill, be it hand lettering or learning to play the Ukulele or creating origami or kirigami models, she adopts a 30-, 50- or 100-day challenge format. “This has helped me stay consistent with practise and build on the basic techniques over time,” Poonam notes. “The recent 100-animal challenge gave me time to bring more complex ideas to life,” she adds.

She started pursuing complex paper designs, during the pandemic. “When movement was limited, it encouraged me to explore my surroundings. I started an origami flower project and tried to imitate a variety of flowers I found in our colony and at neighbourhood parks,” she says.

Even now, she makes a note of ideas along with reference photographs as and when she comes across them.

Design process

Poonam starts each design with a vision of a final model in her head. It could be inspired by a photograph, video, scene from a movie, or real life experiences. She explains, “After I decide on a design, I look up tutorials online. I like to use paper that matches in colour and texture of the animal. I photograph the models at locations close to their natural habitats, to add more life to the final design.” Some of her most complex designs have taken a minimum of 1-2 hours. “A work called ‘Toothless and Light fury’ has taken the longest time — it took almost six hours to finish folding it,” she says. Poonam has worked with kami, mulberry, marble, and handmade paper, to make different models.

Favourite designs

Her favourites are the fan art she created. “Be it Remy from ‘Ratatouille’, Godzilla, Simba and Mufasa from ‘Lion King’, or Nemo, it’s a lot of fun to recreate iconic scenes in origami,” she adds.

Poonam wants to attempt small stop-motion videos with origami models in the future.