creative assignment due: twofer

September 24th, 2014

Last week I gave you guys an assignment, a creative assignment. First, you gave me a list of words. Then I paired them up randomly and gave them back to you. From those two words you were to make something, anything! And you made all kinds of awesome things! There are actually too many to show here, so I thought I’d feature them on the elsie marley facebook page throughout the week. But I can’t not show you a few of my favorites:

creative assignment on elsie marley

Erin is an artist who make fantastic plush dolls. She sells her creations in her shop, Boolah Baguette. She made this alligator sailor for the creative assignment and I totally fell for him: stripy tank, jaunty hat, how could you not love him?!

creative assignment on elsie marley

Tasha forgot all about the assignment until right before it was due (this sentence explains most of my educational career). Then in a stroke of genius she spelled out an Einstein quote with broken eggshells!

creative assignment on elsie marley

This project actually made me a little teary, which sounds weird because it’s all about pickles. Damsel Fly took her two words GARLAND + PICKLE and made a snow globe with pickles having a party inside it! When that didn’t turn out to her liking, she threw an impromptu pickle party for dinner, replete with pickle garnished drinks and PICKLE CONFETTI!! Why did I get teary? Because I had a silly idea for an assignment and someone not only did it, but made it so much better than I ever thought it could be. PICKLE + CONFETTI, who knew it could be so awesome?

creative assignment on elsie marley

Everyone’s vision is so wonderfully different. This textile piece was made by Maria of My Cozy Co, who, “trained as a Marine Biologist but my heart always has been beating for art, craft and design.” The image is a photo transfer of a butterfly swimmer and the water is wool (sheep hair!). I love how this is clever, but not in your face clever. It came together beautifully!

squid + printer // creative assignment on elsie marley

Okay, now for mine. I got the words SQUID + PRINTER, if you remember. My first idea was to draw a squid in a cubicle, but then Lexy (hi Lexy!) commented that I should take this picture of Johannes Gutenberg (creator of the printing press, remember?) and photoshop a squid in his hand. It was too good of an idea to let pass by. While I was cutting out random squid bits, I found that these squid tentacles made a perfect beard for Mr. Gutenberg. I slipped a cuttlefish in his left hand and I have to say I am quite pleased with how it turned out.

squid + printer // creative assignment on elsie marley

I also made this collage I’m calling, “The Wreck of the Epson.” There have been many times I wanted to throw my printer into the sea. Wherein a giant squid will swim up to suck it down into the deep (natch). After putting this collage together I thought it needed something, so I drew a fish…then some more fish…then a bird. I should have stopped with just one fish. But knowing when to stop adding things is a skill in itself. I am so glad you enjoyed (and did!) this creative assignment. Make sure to check the elsie marley facebook page to see more awesome twofer assignments!

Posted in creativity.

8 Responses to creative assignment due: twofer

  1. kristin says:

    well, it’s official: you have the most creative blog readers in blogland. all hail queen meg!

    i kind of want “wreck of the epson” as a print for my cubicle wall at work…

  2. Melissa Q. says:

    Amazing Meg. Perfect and amazing, I feel like the planet’s creative juices just went up a notch. Thanks for the great assignments.

  3. Dam says:

    Thanks Meg for inventing this assignment. For me it’s a wonderful chance to be creative during my everyday life.
    And I’m absolutely amazed about the diversity of everybodys approches.

  4. I love the different directions people went! I hope you are going to do this again. If you do, please sign me up. As a linguist turned stay-at-home mom turned craft/sewing blogger, I love the idea of taking unrelated words and turning them into something fun and creative. Great idea!

  5. Jessica says:

    I freakin’ love this. Thank you. I didn’t play along, but am so inspired. Love it so much!

  6. Melissa H says:

    Oh man I wish I’d played along. Please do this again and I will be ON BOARD! These are fantastic!

  7. Ines says:

    These are all so good!! I wish I had played, looks like a lot of fun!

  8. […] This last one was the most popular, probably because it was the most fun! I had everyone leave a word in the comments, then I randomly sorted the words into pairs, and emailed a pair of words to everyone who commented. Who knows where the next great idea will come from? Why not smash two things together and see what happens?! There were bad ideas and good ideas and very weird ideas, but they were all new and super exciting! What would you do with the words GARLAND + PICKLE? or EINSTEIN + BREAKFAST? You can see what they did here. […]