Some people say that, if you’re creative enough, you can turn any medium into beautiful art. True enough, we’ve seen plenty of examples of people using mundane things like pennies and shoelaces to turn out gorgeous-looking creations. This time around, we’re flashing our impressed facial expressions at this clever series of Pencil Shaving Art.
Created by Meghan Maconochie, each of the pieces are made using nothing but colored pencil shavings. Yep, those things that come out of sharpeners and get thrown directly in the trash whenever you give your pencil a finer tip. She gathers various colors of shavings, arranges them to resemble her subjects, and she takes a photograph of the whole thing once finished.
Maconochie, who spends her day as a teacher, hand-sharpens the pencils to collect their shavings and layers them on top of a sheet of cardboard in order to produce each piece. She’s currently experimenting with various ways to preserve them, although, at the moment, the pieces are mainly temporary, meant to last just long enough to be photographed and preserved on her Instagram timeline.
As of now, the artist appears to merely be on the beginnings of fashioning work in this new medium, so the range of subjects are rather simple, such as animals, everyday objects, and various pop culture elements. Really curious to see how it looks when she decides to whip up a larger piece.
You can check out Maconochie’s Instagram for the rest of her work.