Vincent van Gogh Hand Puppet

Using my large Vincent puppet as a go-by, I created this hand puppet. The base is inspired by one of Vincent's self portraits.

Steelers Mascot.... Steely McBeam

Another hand puppet... This time it's the Steelers mascot, Steely McBeam.

Duke Dog Puppet

Here is the Duke Dog; mascot for JMU. This is a hand puppet made using paperclay and acrylic paint for the head and paws and various fabrics for the body.

Hand Puppets Galore!

Over the past month or so I've been making a lot of hand puppets. Here is the Christmas lot taken at a craft show I was in.....

The table display

an elf,

a gingerbread man that made a narrow escape,

a snow man,

and the big man himself.... Santa!

Muffikins

Here is a small puppet I made for the Yellow House project I've been working on. This is Muffikins and she belongs to the artist Mary Cassatt.

I'll have some pics of the whole cast of characters next week after the filming. Stay tuned.

Something a little different

Over the past few months I've been teaching a class on puppetry to middle school students. During this class I wanted to teach some of the students how to make hand/glove puppets. One would think these would be super simple considering the stuff I've been doing recently but it wasn't quite so. Hand puppets have their own nuances and their own type of locomotion. Also, the type of hand puppet I made requires sculpting skills as well. Luckily, my wonderful wife was on hand to give me a crash course. Using a styrofoam ball as an armature, I built up my sculpture using paper clay. The ball had a good sized hole cut in it so that the finger of the glove (or neck) could be stuck to it. I'll do another post at some point documenting the next hand puppet I make so I can show the process visually.

Anywho, here is the little guy I came up with. His name is Fuzzbucket. You may have seen a pic of him in an earlier post of a pen and ink drawing I did. Hopefully this won't be the last you see of him. In fact, it may be just the beginning :)

As I mentioned earlier, his head is made out of a styrofoam ball with clay sculpted on top of it. The hair is part of a fuzzy boa and the body is hand and machine sewn using anti pil fleece.



Next time I'll show some video of how these type of puppets move.