Introduction:
The earliest recorded mention of puppetry comes from Heroditus in the fifth century
B.C. who wrote of puppets being used in the Egyptian Festival of Osirus. Recorded
history of puppetry in the West dates back to about 300 A.D. Many Native American
and South American cultures used puppets in ceremonies. In Europe, puppets were
widely used in Biblical plays in the fifteenth century. The stringed puppet played
an important role in the nativity plays, becoming known as a "little Mary", or
marionette. With the introduction of television in the 1950s, puppets became contemporary
entertainment. Today, puppets are an ever popular element of the theater arts.
Today you will learn how to make and manipulate your own stringed puppets.
Materials:
1/2 lb.
Marblex air dry clay (or large fist size chunk) per child
Small empty
plastic bottles (like vitamin bottles etc.) without labels
Easily bendable,
small gauge wire (like copper) 15"/child
Wooden dowels
at least 1/2" in diameter - (2) 6" pieces per child OR basswood square dowels
1/2" (for hand controls)
Eye Screws
(small) 13 per puppet
String
Preparation:
Remove the
labels from the plastic bottles. In each plastic bottle, drill 5 small holes,
just big enough for the eye screws to go in and not fall out. Drill one at the
top for the head, 2 on the sides near the top for arms, and 2 on the bottom for
the legs. Insert the eye screws.
Pre-construct
the hand controls for time efficiency: glue the dowels perpendicular to each other,
either in an + or a t. Then screw the eye screws into the dowels: one on each
end of the horizontal dowel to string the legs, one on the top end of the vertical
dowel to string the arms, and one into the middle of the dowel on the bottom to
string the head.
For each
puppet, 5 3" pieces of wire with a small loop bent into one end of will be needed.
This can either be done by the teacher beforehand or can be done by the students,
depending on time concerns and the abilities of the students.
Directions:
Divide the clay into 5 pieces with one a little bit bigger than the others.
Mold the bigger piece into a egg shape for the head. Then take one of the wires
with a loop in one end and stick it all the way through the egg so that the loop
is at the top. The wire acts as an armature for the sculpture. Then bend loop
in the bottom of the wire so that the head can now be strung to the hand controls
at the top and attached to the body at the bottom. Now you can either sculpt some
basic features into the face (such as a nose, indentations for eyes etc..) or
you can leave it smooth and paint on features when the clay is completely dry.
Put the head piece aside for now. * Note: Another option is instead of using wire as an armature, which can
be problematic with clay that shrinks as it dries, use all eye screws to attach
all the limbs together. These can be inserted into individual limbs when the clay
is wet.
Follow this next step to make the arms and legs. Cover one of the looped wires
with clay, molding it into a barrel shape. Be sure to leave the loop end uncovered:
this will attach the limbs to the rest of the body. Now sculpt hands and feet
shapes out of clay and attach them to the ends of the barrels. Remember not to
get too detailed with these or else they will fall apart when dry. Now insert
an eye screw into the tops of the hands and feet so that they can be strung to
the hand controls. Make sure all pieces have dried completely before putting together.
To assemble :
Using needle
nose pliers, or just your hands if the wire is pliable enough, uncurl the looped
ends of each limb just enough to attach it to the eye screws that were inserted
into the bottle. Then rebend the wire loop so that each limb is securely attached
to the bottle. Attach the head, hands , and feet and then set the figure aside.
Attach string
to each of the eye screws on the hand controls. For better control and less tangling,
the strings should not be more than 12" long. The head string attaches to the
eye screw on the bottom side of the hand controls. The leg strings attach to the
horizontal ends of the hand controls. The hands will be attached via one string
that loops through the last eye screw (on the vertical end of the hand controls).
Now tie the
hand control strings to the puppet through the eye screws. Tie the head on first
with a 8" length of string so that the puppet can hang while the arms and legs
are strung. Tie very lightly because the length of each string will have to be
adjusted so that the puppet's posture is natural and hangs properly. This is the
most difficult part of the process and it would be a good idea to get someone
to hold the hand controls for you or insert a hook into the top of the hand controls
to hang it so you can have both hands free for stringing the limbs.
To make your puppet bend
at the waist, drill an extra hole for an eye screw into what would be the lower
backside on the bottle. Also insert an eye screw into the posterior end of the
hand controls and string those together.
Other Ideas: Clothe your
marionette in fabric or decorative paper, get together with your friends and build
a stage to put on a play, write and perform a play as a birthday or holiday gift.
Art Terms:
Armature – in sculpture, a skeleton construction on which the sculptor builds
up his or her work in plaster, clay, or another plastic substance. The armatures
of small figures are commonly made of stiff wire; those of larger works may be
constructed of any rigid and durable material.
Resources:
Flower, Cedric and Alan Fortney. Puppets: Methods and Materials. Davis Publications,
Worcester, Mass. 1983.
Mayer, Ralph. The Harper
Collins Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques, 2nd edition. Harper Collins Publishers,
1991. tte, Vermont, 1992.
