Today I’ve been making a kangaroo mask. This is for the Biami production I blogged about yesterday. I decided to use paper mâché even though it’s a little time consuming. For something fairly small like this it’s fine, and I am pretty quick. I like doing paper mâché very much and find it meditative. I’m not sure on the final finish yet – fur or felt?
I’ve been making some puppets for Biami, the creation story of the Wiradjuri people, by Duncan Smith and Maitland Schnaars, which will be performed for the Kids, Creatures and 100 Harlequins – Centenary Children’s Week Celebration on 25 & 26 October in Glebe Park. (It’s part of the Centenary of Canberra project.) Today I finished the goanna!
This is the little ‘rock’ house I made for the play I blogged about last week, Joy McDonald’s The (Very) Sad Fish Lady. It is made from sheet polypropylene cut to suggest rocks , and was covered with gauze, so that it could appear solid when lit from outside, but could also show action inside when lit internally.
Here are a few making photos.
With Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s leadership looking pretty rocky at the moment, I thought I better jump in and post these photos of finger puppets of her and Opposition Leader Tony Abbot before she isn’t Prime Minister any more! They were made for the Women’s Health Magazine late last year and appeared in the January 2013 issue, illustrating a fluff article about Aussie excellence, in this case how good Australian politicians are at insulting each other in parliament.
The magazine first contracted me to make finger puppets of then PM Kevin Rudd and OL Tony Abbot and their deputies in June 2010, but almost the next day Rudd was rolled by Julia Gillard. Don’t want to be gazumped again!
There are few more photos of the puppets in my photoset at Flickr. Of course I had some fun doing silly things like this with them before they were shipped. Do I hear a resounding ‘ewww!’?
Last April I made these four muppet characters for a student film project. I never saw the resulting video, so I can’t say how it went! The Mushroom King technically isn’t really a muppet; instead he was made to dangle on a string, and his mouth is moved remotely using a bike cable.
I’m trying out the WordPress gallery here. It annoys me that you cant’t see the tentacle monster’s one eye in the thumbnail, but once you click on the thumbnails the gallery viewer itself is quite cool. Time will tell if I persist with using the galleries!
The two white butterflies body suits that I was working on last week are finished. Last Sunday one of the butterflies was out and about at the Canberra Airport Open Day. You can see more photos taken on the day at The Fool Factory’s gallery.
The last few working days I’ve been making a couple of giant butterfly body suits. These are to go with the masks and wings I made some years ago for The Fool Factory. You may run across the new butterflies at the National Folk Festival at Easter time in Canberra.
These Barnes Products‘ adjustable mould boxes that allow one to easily size the walls around a sculpt are pretty nifty. I always like looking through their sculpting, moulding and casting supplies, although I don’t have much call for them. The times I have, they’ve been very helpful. I also like their online tutorials, and they are now running courses. There have been a few in nearby Queanbeyan, but only in resin jewellery. Now if it was in casting silicon or something like that I’d be right there!
This is an origami shell sculpture I made a while ago for a special present. It’s folded from a large brown manila envelope, and measures 20cm both lengthwise and across the widest end. The ends are held in place with wires threaded with tiny beads.
