Keeping Creative While Quarantined: Found Alphabet and Numbers By Judi Kauffman for The Queen’s Ink

Here’s a fun scavenger hunt that can be done in the house or garage: Find letters and numbers among the odds and ends that surround you! The letter X is a paint tool, the Q is an eraser, the Y is a zipper, the number 7 is part of a torn shopping bag, the plastic T protected the prongs on the plug for our new food processor!

This will be more fun when we’re no longer quarantined. I found the rusty nail J, metal washers O and zero,, wood scrap A, and plastic B while taking walks around the neighborhood before the coronavirus pandemic. Alas, I wouldn‘t risk picking up such things right now.

YOUR TURN

• If your home is neat as a pin, create the letters and numbers from scratch by hand-or die cutting simple shapes to combine or trim with scissors as needed. (Two circles for the number 8, a slim feather for the number 1 or letter I, the right half of the number 8 plus a straight strip for the letter B, and so on.
• Find letters and numbers in magazines.
• Look through your paper scraps - leftovers from die cutting will often yield interesting letter forms and numbers!
• Draw animals or people posing as letters and numbers.
• Take a photo of each separate letter and number so you can make color or black and white photo prints to spell out words, names, and dates. Frame your creation!
• Add photo prints or collage to your art journal.
• *The actual ‘found’ letters and numbers are too thick for a journal, but could be framed in a shadow box!
• Trace the photo prints, re-size the tracings so the alphabet and numbers are close in scale, unless you like a mix of varying sizes. Cut your own stencils from the tracings! (The U and Y are so much bigger than the other letters - that’s why I’m suggesting re-sizing.)