School days

Challenge: Back to school.  Use traditional school materials like number 2 pencils or lined paper notebooks to make something nontraditional.

I started by sketching a leaf onto a piece of blank white paper.  I don't actually have any lined paper, or I would've used it!  With clear scotch tape, I loosely taped around the outline, colored inside the tape with crayons, then removed the tape with the hope of seeing some really cool leaf with a sort of funky outline, but it turned out kind of just ok.  So I didn't take a picture of it, I tried again instead with painter's tape.  I know, it's not really a traditional school material, but by this point, I was determined to make my tape-outline-colored-leafy project work.

So here are some pictures throughout the process:

I wasn't super thrilled with the outcome, though I really enjoyed the concept and the process.  I think that the first image might actually be my favorite, with just the tape outline.  I decided to outline the leaf with green marker, still didn't love it, so I cut it out and liked it a bit more:

I don't know how to really make this more appealing to me.  I think maybe the un-crispness of the crayon lines might be the thing that isn't working for me visually, maybe colored pencils or markers would've been better, or some kind of pattern instead.

I don't think I'm going to be able to post tomorrow, busy day ahead.  Goodnight!

Day #3

Challenge: Make something out of paper, but don't use scissors or glue or draw on it.  What now?  (And no, you don't have to know origami to do this).

Ok, so I know how to make an origami swan, but I've done enough of them that I felt that I'd be cheating to make one for this challenge.

So I started thinking on my broad theme, Nature, and decided to tear a maple leaf shape out of paper.  For this challenge, I kept things pretty basic.

That picture is my first attempt.  Even though it's been a long day and I started this challenge well into the evening, I wasn't exactly happy with the result.  So I tried again, folding the paper first and tearing more carefully for a more controlled and symmetrical effect:

I've used leaves in work previously and like collecting them in the fall, seeing all the colors change on the trees - one of the great things about living in Michigan.