Serial Plane Cut Paper Olympic Figures - Raya Sader Bujana

You might recall the origami world necklace and origami hearts necklace by Raya Sader Bujana of Little Ray of Sunflower in Barcelona that have been featured here in recent months. There's no denying they are pretty/clever/cute or whatever other adjective you would like to use for such fun jewelry, but today I have a completely different side of Raya's remarkable talent to share with you... 


...behold this extraordinary collection of layered paper athletes.

First, the back story... about a year ago Raya was contacted by a photographer who asked her to create a series of figures that would represent the Olympics in paper to add to his collection of stock images.
After much sketching and discarding of ideas, she focused on the recognizable posture of each discipline.

Trained as an architect, Raya is skilled in using the serial planes technique for landscapes and found she enjoyed applying the idea to the curves of the human body.


Rays explains, "The whole concept of this design was to express movement using paper. The added texture, light and volume that the technique provides reinforces the fluidity of the pieces."


"Digitalising each figure to achieve the correct posture was a challenge that required a huge team effort to get just the right positioning. Of course each section needed to be the exact shape to attain the look of the curve."


"Then came the cutting... I hand cut all of the pieces and used tiny 3mm separators to assemble them. It was a huge job as some of the figures have around 150 tiny pieces and up to 500 separators. The project required many, many hours of work, but the end result was very satisfying for me."




I'm partial to the ones in which Raya is holding the figure in front of natural greenery, but goodness, each photograph is exceptional, isn't it? Not to mention they have me looking forward to the Summer Olympics!


Follow along on Instagram with Raya Sader Bujana to see even more figures and additional projects.