[017] Making Games Every Day for a Month, Day 5 of 31: Pick-Up-Sticks

"A game is a series of interesting choices." - Sid Meier

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I have a new toy today. A camera stand.

You're going to be on the receiving end of some truly incredible cinematography today.

A few weeks ago I harvested some Birch saplings and made them into a gigantic set of Pick-Up-Sticks.

(red Fractal-Tac-Toe game for scale)

I was going to bust out the Pick-Up-Sticks for the Unplugged event at North House Folk School, but it got rained out, and the festivities moved indoors.

Right now, the sticks are simple naked wood, but I'd like to give them a little more character by painting them. That's today's project.

I did bring a set of Pick-Up-Sticks to another event on campus - to the Solstice festivities . The branches I brought were Willow, which is straighter and less branchy, but softer and less durable over time.

The game was, surprisingly, a huge hit. Everyone knows how to play Pick-Up-Sticks, and everyone was up for the challenge of using hugemongous sticks for the game.

The only people that didn't know the rules were wee small kids. I saw some really wonderful moments where grandmas and grandpappies taught their little young ones how to caaaaaarefully lift up a stick just so.

And those young ones really loved watching the sticks closely, and catching grandma when her stick accidentally bumped another!

I found a real joy in facilitating those intergenerational moments.

I also made a small bow and arrow set, complete with a birchbark target, and I saw lots of parent-child teams working the bow together. It was really beautiful to witness.

I'm using milk paint to color these Pick-Up-Sticks. Milk paint is made from natural earth pigments mixed with casein, a sticky protein extracted from milk. Milk paint is nontoxic, dries quickly, and gives a nice bright-but-not-shiny color palette.

Real Milk Paint is good but Old Fashioned Milk Paint is the best.

Thanks for watching and reading. See you tomorrow for the next game.

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"The term 'whittling' conjures images of old men making shavings while sitting on a bench in front of the general store. My definition of whittling [...] is simply any carving done with a knife. Carving implies the use of chisels, gouges, and a mallet, while sculpting is just carving while wearing a beret with a plump nude sprawled out in front of you." - Keith Randich, Old Time Whittling