Nandan Nair

The old business cards that my father had, put my creative thinking to the test as I tried to make something out of them. The only other tools I had were a pair of scissors, hole puncher, glue, stapler and pins. Finally, I decided to make snakes – black mambas and a king cobra. Both of them had similar structure challenges, although the cobra is longer, has more deadly-looking fangs and a prominent hood. Using engineering, I figured out that I should only put one staple on one side to join the cards, so it can coil in to a circle. Also, I only stapled the top part of the head to the body. This allowed it to move its head down or up depending on its position. The final engineering challenge for the body was to make sure that the hood can be raised up to confront others. Since it wouldn’t stay balanced, I had to staple a card between the hood and the body and pull it back until it can remain upright. I also adjusted the angle so that it remains stable.

The hardest part of making these ravaging reptiles was their head. I had to cut a few cards and bend them to create a “U- shape” for the base of the head. That was just the beginning. Using 2 U-shaped bases, I then wrapped cards around it to create the jaws and left one end open for the mouth. On the top of the jaw, I punched two small holes so that I could insert cards cut to form fangs. Following that, I cut and folded a small card, pointing the edges upwards to the top of the face to form the spots for the eyes. Using the two punched holes from the hole puncher, I colored both of them in black and stuck one to each of the slots to make the eyes. After that, I cut cards to form the T shape and inserted them as fangs. For the cobra, you also have to make the body longer, make the fangs look more deadly, and add a rounded hood to the head which was done by simply using stapler. I now understand the essence of mother nature’s engineering and evolution. While this was good, I think I will stick to painting snakes like I did with my painting “The Majestic Cobra“. I hope you enjoyed reading this blog and seeing the pictures on Flickr. Please write if you have any comments or questions.