this lesson comes from Ken Vieth's book entitled "From Ordinary to Extraordinary" where students take a common place object, the pencil, and transform a drawing of their creation into pencils. This visual problem project promotes creative thinking, higher-order thinking, and visual awareness. Many found this project to be a challenge.
It starts with drawing a pencil, noting its component parts and characteristics: Black end, cone, ridges, yellow, black lettering, metal band, eraser. Then students generate an large image on a sheet of drawing paper. This is most successful with these qualities:
Large, line drawing, of a person, place, thing or animal. Should have a blank background, no color, no value, little texture.
Then the transformation begins. All the space within their drawing is filled with pencils. They can be pushed, pulled, squeezed, stretched, to fill the space. No leftover space is allowed. Then they are colored in with the colors of pencils, paying attention to shading to make them appear 3-D.