Origami Installation

We made these cranes the same way you would make a normal origami crane, just on a much bigger scale. Then we took a needle and some string and poked holes in the head, back, and tail of the crane. Using these holes we made loops with the string. These string loops served to keep the cranes on the invisible string we would use later to hang them. We set the cranes up in the V formation, and then wove the clear string through the loops we created with the colored string earlier. Lastly we lifted the cranes with the clear string and hung them up from poles on the ceiling. From this lesson we learned how hard it is to use clear string and how tangled it gets. We also learned teamwork skills for organizing the cranes and weaving the clear string through the cranes. My group especially had to work on problem solving to untangle our mess of cranes. Even though they didn't end up getting untangled we still worked for a long time on untangling them. The process included making the cranes, coming up with an idea for what to do with them, adding the string loops, organizing them into V formations, weaving the clear string through the loops, and hanging up the cranes from the ceiling. The product is 2 flocks of origami cranes hanging in the front lobby of Apex High School.

Tray and Cup

I liked the process of making my tray and cup. The tray was really fun to make because it made me think of Christmas with the snowflakes (but that also makes me sad that we still have more school before Christmas). The ribbon cup was really cool to make too, and I really like how they look. I used red underglaze on my tray to make it look kind of like a candy cane to stick with the Christmas theme. I didn't use any for the cup because it cracked, and I didn't know how I would use underglaze on it. So far my tray has turned out successful, and hopefully it will look good after the glaze is fired. The cup has some cracks in it, but other than that it turned out pretty good. For the future I would make sure that I stamp in all of the snowflakes plenty because some of the indents weren't deep enough for the underglaze to stay in. Also I would use more water to smooth out my ribbon cup to make sure it doesn't crack when it gets fired.

Figurative Work

The two main challenges of this project were making a box with sides that fit together nicely, and finding quotes that would fit into all of the tight spaces towards the end. After sanding and filling in any holes between the pieces of wood I managed to make the box look fairly put together, and the quotes covered up anything that didn't look totally perfect. For the quotes I ended up using more titles and small quotes on the back, and trimming off as much extra paper as I could to try to make everything fit. It took a very long time, but I finished eventually. I think that the different colors and fonts of the paper made the box look very neat, and that was definitely a success. The lid of the box was also a huge success. The gold pages on the book look very nice, and I like that the lid is a book. I think that the lid adds a very cool finishing touch to my box.