Here’s what I do:

• Mix 1 1/4 cups of powdered milk into 750ml cold water. (Or just under a litre of any kind of milk; if powdered, mix according to recommended proportions and add an extra 1/4 cup of powder)
• Heat milk in a saucepan until it is really really about to boil over.
• While the milk is heating pour boiling water into the pot the yoghurt will set it, and its lid, to sterilize them. I’m using a kg pot left over from when I last bought yoghurt.
• Tip the water out, pour the milk in.
• Put on the lid and let the milk cool to only just warm; this takes an hour or more.
• Stir in three or so tablespoons of good fresh live-culture natural yoghurt.
• Put on the lid again, wrap the pot in a towel and leave it untouched in a warm place for about 12 hours.
• Voilà! Yum!

I’ve taken to making this while I am preparing dinner, then it sits by the fire overnight, and is ready in the morning. But I’ve also had success with putting the pot in an esky with some containers of boiling water. And yes, once you make one batch you can use it to make the next.

How to makedo – extended from MAKEDO on Vimeo.

I’d love to have a play with these cool Makedo reusable connectors!

Gamla Model Makers have developed these great little articulated puppet heads for an upcoming Australian stop motion animation movie (I wonder which one?). They are only 40mm tall, but have quite a range of possible expressions. On the page they  look like emoticons, don’t they?

Mr Weekend is a giant (4.5 metre tall) robotic sock puppet made by Michael Simi. He is fashioned over a large mechanical hand from a defunct Michigan car factory and is having some difficulty adjusting to his change of job into the art world…

(via @JudexJones)

Check out these fabulous magpie geese puppets! They were made by Erth, for the production Goose Lagoon, a new contemporary dance work by Gary Lang NT Dance Company which premiered recently at the Darwin Festival. Here are the pick of the links I could find:

• Goose Lagoon and the Gluteus Maximus – Bob Gosford
• Goose Lagoon, Darwin Festival – Erth Blog
• Top End mythology, with puppets – The Australian
• Gary Lang NT Dance Company’s Goose Lagoon – artsHub reveiw

Puppetrynews and then PuppetVision picked up on this advertisement for the Mayflower moving  company which borrows very directly from Royal de Luxe’s little giantess street theatre spectacle.  It is by no means the first to do so, as we had the Allen’s big doll commercial in Brisbane last year and there have been others that I have been tracking for some years (several pages of posts), which show Royal de Luxe has been highly influential. But the way Audrey settles in her big chair and takes a nap is particularly close to the giantess resting in her deckchair. In my opinion she doesn’t evoke the beauty and mystic that the little giantess does, but she’s not alone in that either!  The makers, The Character Shop, have detailed photos of the making process.

This is the trailer for the short animated film adaptation of Shaun Tan’s The Lost Thing which is now released and reeling in awards! It looks great, doesn’t it?  I also like the design of the official website, and Shaun’s account of the process.

Screen Hub reports that producer Sophie Byrne has also ‘optioned the rights to The Arrival and The Rabbits via Passion Pictures Australia, and Tales from Outer Suburbia is a co-development with the UK. They are currently in discussions with US production companies for The Arrival and Tales from Outer Suburbia to be adapted into feature films, whereas The Rabbits is likely to be made as a short here in Australia with Shaun directing.’

I also hear on the grapevine that Spare Parts Puppet Theatre is working on an adaptation of Tales from Outer Suburbia!

Previously:

• The Lost Thing to become a short film
• First glimpse of animation adaptation of Shaun Tan’sThe Lost Thing

This is a preview of The Grimstones – Mortimer Revealed , the second show in Asphyxia’s magical gothic fairytale about the Grimstone family, following on from The Grimstones – Hatched. I love the look of these marionettes, and hope to catch a performance sometime when they tour up this way. Their touring itinerary is here.

Earlier this year I made the set and props for Flotsam and Jetsam, a production for children which tells stories about living on Australian lighthouse islands in the past. The script was written by Greg Lissaman, from recollections gathered by Chrissie Shaw, the actor. Catherine Roach is the director.

The set is an island, panels painted in a pointalist style, which can concertina into different shapes and be dismantle for touring. The lighthouse is modelled on the historic lighthouse at Cape Otway in Victoria, and Tasman Island in Tasmania was among other sources of stories and images, such as the flying fox access to the island. There were numerous props – seaweed, wooden chests, a porcelain doll, an albatross, and a sea buoy. There are more photos of these in my  Flotsam and Jetsam photoset.

Touring dates and booking details for Flotsam and Jetsam are listed at Chrissie’s site. On 19 – 21 August it has a short season at the Maritime Museum in Sydney, and then it will tour coastal community venues in NSW. Chrissie also performs The Keeper, an adult play also based on lighthouse stories.

(My teenage drawing of George)

Freecycle is pretty cool, isn’t it? A freecycler just called at my door to take my box of Beatles newspaper and magazine clippings. It feels good to have given them to someone who really wants them, as I’m not interested in the clippings anymore.

The collection included some Beatles Monthly magazines, a few posters, some ghastly half-photo half-drawing portraits that Mobil service stations must have been giving away in 1964 and other amusingly dodgy promotional material, and accounts of their notable visit to Adelaide. Their biggest crowd ever, at 300,000 people about a third of Adelaide’s population at the time, lined the route from Adelaide Airport to the city. Unfortunately I wasn’t there, as I was just a bit young. I remember looking at the ticket queue with curiosity and maybe a little longing though – it must have been important to me if I cut articles out of the newspaper.