Project I: 8 Ways of Looking at a Piece of Paper

A page introducing the project, "The Strange New Planet of Drak'Morra", under the title, a note reading "written by Dr. M", but a large ink spill obscures the name after the M. The page is lightly watercolor washed with a brown color., and the text is written in black ink, with large spills scattered across the page.

The page is watercolor washed a light brown color, with small text in the left corner reading "12th of December, 1974." Large text in the top center of the page reads "about Drak'morra".
There is a tear-out of a lined sheet of paper on the left side of the page with a journal entry reading "While the circumstances of my arrival on Drak'Morra are unfortunate, I do believe this planet to be a beautiful and mysterious place...

This strange planet has a short daytime, only about 8 hours according to my pocketwatch, which somehow still works, even after the spacecraft crashed onto this land

Plants and animals seem to glow during the dark period here, some for hunting, and some, I think just because they can."
To the right of the lined journal entry, there is a pen sketch of a pocket watch, with the chain warping off the page, a caption below it reads, "Grandfather's pocketwatch".
Under the watch sketch is a glued-in photo of a paper sculpture of the planet, with a plateau, and some smaller mountain-like mounds below it, as well as some other planet and moon-like structures suspended above the landscape. To the left of the photo and under the lined journal entry is another pen and pencil sketch of the landscape in the photo, this time now with lines and arrows, and a small arrow pointing to the image with the label "Plateau" on it.

The Strange New Planet of Drak’Morra (8 Ways to Fold a Sheet of Paper)

August 2025

All pages are 11×14 inches

Sculptures: One white sheet of paper, tacky glue

Journal pages: watercolor, ink pen, glue

Statement of Inspiration (2-3 sentences on references, process, why, how, what, etc.)

For Project I, we explored the different ways you can mold and sculpt a single sheet of printer paper into a new and interesting sculpture. The assignment was to make 8 different sculptures using one sheet of paper for each, finding ways that the paper can transform into something completely different. We had to observe how the paper caught and reflected light and what kind of shadows it casted when we shone the studio light on it.

I went a more story-telling route with my project, telling the story of a scientist who crash lands on a strange planet called Drak’Morra, where they document the native flora and fauna of the planet, before eventually succumbing to the apex predator in the ecosystem. While I had my struggles working with the paper and sculpting it how I wanted, I had fun creating my own story and my own creatures, and loved the story book style that I went with.