A Leaf of Another Color

A banana leaf is a pretty simple shape and design, don't you think? So if someone were to freehand it, it shouldn't be too hard to come out with a realistic looking banana leaf. Actually, I did have a realistic looking banana leaf. I just didn't use the right medium, I guess. If you've read my posts from this week, you know we're deep into decorating for Vacation Bible School. I spent all afternoon Monday tracing and drawing leaves from this big roll of green paper. I cut the leaves out and then pressed them down under chairs to keep them from curling. Yesterday I started trying to attach the leaves to our cardboard palm trees. The leaves are made of paper. They don't stand out stiffly. They droop as if the tree had been standing in the rain. They looked very sad, hanging from our cardboard trees. As I pondered what to do, I wandered into the next room where one of the ladies was decorating her classroom. She had a palm tree. It looked more more realistic than mine did! And she had palm tree leaves! They were cut out of cardboard and they looked so realistic! I just made mine look sadder. Just then one of the teens came up and asked me what I needed him to do. I pointed to the good palm tree and said, "Make me leaves like that." A couple of them got busy on it and next thing you know, we've got great looking trees. It always helps if one person has ideas and at least one other person knows how to put those ideas together. In my case, I wasn't either person. I copied the ideas and then I copied the means of making it work. Hey, we can't all be creative geniuses, can we? Important thing is, our trees are done and I spent the rest of the day tracing safari animals on cardboard. They look pretty good except that my parrot is twice as big as my elephant. I've always had a little problem with perspective.