Puppets

Last year, the year 7s made puppets as part of their textiles project.  The Art department got together with the English department and we found out that they were actually reading Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and so the idea for puppets came about.  All of the year 7s had done in depth character studies, so they were very inspired and each had a favourite one that they wanted to make into a puppet.

I had seen some really fun heads made at Stirling High School using nylon tights (see below for their pictures), and we developed this idea but on a smaller scale for our puppets. 

Students began the project by decorating their puppet’s body.  We had pre-cut 2 body templates for each student out of a large white bed sheet.  They used batik technique to decorate the cotton, then once the wax had been ironed off, the students sewed their bodies together on the sewing machines, but left a hole at the neck, where the head would be inserted.

We then set about making the heads.  You will need a pair of tights (any colour), some thread, a needle, stuffing, buttons, beads, wool and anything else you might want to add for hair etc.  I started by getting the students to make the noses.  With your thumb and finger, pinch a nose shape and secure this in place with a needle and thread.  The more you stitch, the more shapes you can form on the face.  The lips are done in the same way.  For the eyes, there are lots of different options, you can add buttons, or add small blobs of fabric.  For the hair you can use wool, fabric, fluffy stuff – anything!  It's all about experimenting.  The ears are separate shapes that I stitched separately, then stitched them to the head.

Once the heads were finished, you insert half a toilet roll for the neck, and tape these together.  This neck then inserts into the fabric body, and using a hot glue gun, the heads are stuck in place.

My trials and examples.....

Using different sizes of buttons makes a funny wee face!  I also stitched some orange beads for freckles.

In this example I added an extra bit of stuffed nylon for the lips, which I stitched into for texture.  The eyes are done in a similar way - for a more bulbous look!

A head that has been glued to the body.  I think this guy looks like a real thug!  It is very easy to make quite ugly looking characters, and much trickier to get cute and pretty looking ones.

For the hair on this one, I glued strips of scrap fabrics.

And I gave her some little sparkly freckles, and small bits of fabric behind the buttons for eyes.

Here are some different bodies that I trialled using batik.  I drew some extra details on some of mine using fabric markers.

I gave this cheeky chap a little scarf and a goatee, for some extra character.

 

Some of the pupils' work...

I got the idea for the puppet heads from the art department at Stirling High school, when I worked there.  They had made these but much larger...I just love them!