I’ve been phoning around the crafts shops asking if they have any large koala noses, as you do. Only one person spluttered with laughter; she gets a big tick of approval. But it turns out there is a dearth of koala noses. What can have happened?? Where can they be? Are they living it up, […]
Category Archive for 'materials'
All the wild little horses
Posted in craft, make, materials, portfolio, props, sculpture, theatre, tutorial on May 31st, 2007
I loved making these two little horses recently for an up-coming theatre production, Emma’s Dynasty, by Jigsaw Theatre Company. They are based on an earthenware Chinese Han Dynasty horse that is here in the Australian National Gallery collection, but they are tiny in comparison, only 17 cm high at the head. I really like […]
I’m working on several projects at once at the moment. One is making a set of those flying ducks that people had as wall ornaments when I was growing up. I’ve been lent a couple to model from, and looking at them up close I can understand their attraction, despite their kitsch reputation. Since the […]
FantiSea: Giant sea creatures in Esperance
Posted in creatures, design, make, materials, puppetry, puppets, street theatre on Feb 28th, 2007
(Cool festival image by Haylie Michelle)
Over in Western Australia, designer and maker Bryan Woltjen and animateur Karen Hethey have been engaged for the last few months on the huge task of designing and building 8 giant puppet sea creatures for FantiSea, which will be held on 22 March as part of the Esperance Festival […]
My third project for Floriade was making a giant model flower in cross-section, to be the central display in CSIRO’s Division of Plant Industry’s information tent. I really enjoyed making this, too. Some projects go really easily and this was one of those!
The petals were the main challenge, but I decided pretty quickly to use […]
Espresso coffee hats
Posted in craft, design, fun, make, materials, performance art, portfolio, street theatre, video on Oct 21st, 2006
Making these fun hats was another of my Floriade projects. I enjoyed making them and was really happy with how they turned out. They were made for the performance group The Bunch of Posers, who in this guise are called Acappellacino.
To make them I started out by making the cup shape upside down, with a […]
Simple rods puppets from recycled materials
Posted in make, materials, puppetry, puppets, tutorial on Jan 27th, 2006
These are two simple rod puppets which were made by my son when he was about 8, at a workshop that I was involved with.
The materials were recycled bits and pieces. The basic pattern was a plastic bottle for a body; a stuffed sock for the head; cardboard tubes running through the bottle neck for […]
Foam Latex Puppetmaking Tutorial
Posted in animation, make, materials, puppetry, puppets, tutorial on Sep 6th, 2005
Boing Boing points to Kathi Zung, a NYC maker of foam latex puppets used in animated videos and films, and in particular to her Do-it-yourself Foam Latex Puppetmaking 101 tutorial on DVD. I’d like to try something like that sometime.
This is the same technique that was used to make the Leunig Animated series that brought […]
Moss graffiti and secret worlds
Posted in make, materials, street art, tutorial on Jul 15th, 2005
We have been deep in drought for some years, but in just the last few weeks we have had enough rain to encourage small patches of green to peep through, and suddenly there are beautiful verdant mounds of moss appearing in nooks and cracks in the pavement, and around trees in the gardens. I’m […]
Ronnie Burkett’s Paper Mache Recipes and other things
Posted in craft, make, materials, portfolio, sculpture on Jul 14th, 2005
Having seen Ronnie Burkett’s amazing Tinka’s New Dress in its last season at the Melbourne Festival in 2002, and heard him speak so inspiringly at the Puppetry Summit there at the same time, I was interested to see Burkett’s article on paper mache (via Puppetry News and Views).
The article talks about recipes for making […]