Last year, I had the good fortune to teach puppet making at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. I taught three students how to create two moving-mouth style, foam puppets. Based on that class and those students, word of mouth and some photos in the Folk School catalog, this year, I had 9 students (and one VERY helpful teacher aid). And unlike last year's full-week class, I had Sunday night through Friday morning, which might not seem like a lot of time until you are in the throws of puppet making. Several students commented they felt like they were on "Project Runway" towards the end. All in all, we ended up with 20 puppets (each participant made two puppets: one fleece, one fur)
Here are some photos from the week!
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| Setting up the room for the week's class. |
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| Examples of foam shapes and finished puppets. |
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| A table of tools. |
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| Creating the puppets' foam skeletons. |
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| After foam, comes fabric. |
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| Joan works on tracing out her pattern pieces onto fleece. |
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| Jens begins work on his fleece covering. |
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| Louise also tracing pattern peices. |
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| Bonita, Lynn, Marty and Joann |
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| Fur creatures begin emerging! |
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| Lynn working on her two characters |
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| Jens hard at work creating a rabbit character. |
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| Bonita, Marty and Joann all working hard! |
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| I got to make puppets, too. this pink dog began emerging. |
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| Lauren, my teacher's aid, came up with some amazing puppets! This was one. |
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| Isn't that nose incredible?! |
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| More work on my puppy.. |
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| Marty's characters! |
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| Bonita with her lovely puppets! |
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| Marty with her creations! |
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| Joan with her characters! |
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| Love those fake teeth (on the puppet!) |
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| I think Joan has a thing for teeth... |
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| Louise and Julie working together! |
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| Joyce used plastic veggies to achieve the look of her fur character! |
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| Lynn working on her fleece puppet. |
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| Lynn made this adorable dog complete with legs and feet! |
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| Lauren's..uhm,...thing. |
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| Lauren's fur creature complete with Morris cape! |
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| Lauren and hubby with her puppets. |
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| My finished puppy. |
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| Complete with tail! |
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| Jens still hard at work! |
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| Julie's fleece puppet |
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| Louise and her princess puppet |
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| Joyce's fleece puppet |
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| Louise's furry friend |
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| Joan felting the hair for her character |
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| Julie stitching! |
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| Julie's characters! |
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| Ain't that a good lookin' crew?! |
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| Our display at the student show on Friday morning! |
Jens, Louise and Lauren stuck around for my weekend class of Puppet Manipulation 101. Here's a sample of that!
