A meditation tutor from Greenwich has turned her love of origami into an exciting new art career.

India Ram, 43, of Banning Street, Maze Hill, uses the traditional Japanese art of paper folding to create art from books after a friend got her into it.

Her quirky creations include owls, moustaches and ships after taking a year to perfect her folding techniques from watching videos to reading about the nature of paper.

She said: “I love all forms of art and personally feel it is underrated. Mathematics is integral to every stage of the process to create each design so those who enjoy maths might love this art.

“It can take days and sometimes weeks to get the measurements correct for a new design and then sourcing and determining which book to integrate the design into takes time too.”

Miss Ram, who studied Media, Culture and Society at the University of Birmingham, enjoys reading books and says her own literature collection ranges from fairy tales to sacred texts.

Discussing the process of her method, she adds: “The folding, adjusting and re positioning is the last stage of the process. The dimensions and pages in a book also are factors as a simple heart shape will take longer to draw, measure and hand-fold in a book which has 400 pages as opposed to one which has 100 pages.

“Having said that, of course I have got faster through practice and developing new techniques and what used to take me 3 hours for a simple heart now takes around 2 but this only the measuring and folding aspect.”

Miss Ram has big plans for the future including an exhibition at the Eltham Centre planned for next year.

She said: “I dream of flying off the Japan one day to learn with the experts some day. There are lots of places I'd like to drive this project as I believe it is only limited by one's imagination.”