Simple Stick Puppets

Simple Stick Puppets

ARTS 130

Professor J. Healy

Time Period: 1-2 Periods

Aims:

•To create original puppet characters

•To use puppets in student-produced puppet show

Materials: Bristol board or oak tag pieces/scraps, art materials of your choice that work on paper, scissors, tape, popsicle sticks, tongue depressors, short kebob skewers

or stubby pencils.

Motivation: There are many ways to approach this lesson with children. If you have a few puppets already made, you could start the lesson with a puppet show about making puppets. Kids adore it when you make different voices for the characters. Or you could talk a bit about how plays are written and have your students write playlets (either in groups or individually) of their own. The important thing is to have at least two characters that can interact.

Teach your students how to make a beginning, middle and end to their plays and have them keep it short. (Kids’ plays can go on forever. A little editing here will be a good thing.) In any case, the students should know ahead of time what character or characters they are making.

Vocabulary to use: character, dialogue, villain, hero/heroine, shape, three-quarter view, frontal view

Procedure: Gather your students around a large table, making sure that everyone can see. I have everyone take a step backwards to make the oval big enough so no one is blocked. (If kids lean forward, people behind him are blocked.)

Discuss the importance of shape and show students how to make a frontal or side view of their characters. After drawing in the details, the flat pieces should be colored. You may want to use the old standby of sharpie followed by watercolor. At the end, gluing on feathers, glitter, eyeballs, etc. is also an option. Use Elmer’s Glue’all—not School Glue or a glue stick.

The last step is to cut out the character and tape it on a stick for use.

Reflection: Follow-up: Make a puppet theater out of a large appliance box for students to use in the classroom. Add a real curtain.

130--Finger Puppets--Grades 3 & up

Note: I’ve made these at childrens' birthday parties, making them at beginning, playing games while they dry and then painting them before the cake. They’re ready to take home by the end of the party. If you set up the lesson correctly, it’s really not messy.

If you or other grade teachers are teaching writing or drama to children, making puppets of characters can be a strong curricular addition.

Aims:
To explore the use of plaster craft
To create original puppet characters
To use puppets in student-produced puppet show

Materials: First Session: plaster craft cut into strips (do this over a garbage can, if possible to avoid dust); coffee cans filled with water 1” from top; vaseline; thick styrofoam from packaging with old pencils pushed in for easy drying; optional: aluminum foil/pipe cleaners or other easily bendable wire
Second Session: paint (tempera or acrylic); brushes; water cans; optional: feathers, googley eyes

Motivation: There are many ways to approach this lesson with children. If you have a few puppets already made, you could start the lesson with a puppet show about making puppets. Kids adore it when you make different voices for the characters. Or you could talk a bit about how plays are written and have your students write playlets (either in groups or individually) of their own. The important thing is to have at least two characters that can interact.

Teach your students how to make a beginning, middle and end to their plays and have them keep it short. (Kids’ plays can go on forever. A little editing here will be a good thing.)

In any case, the students should know ahead of time what character or characters they are making.

Vocabulary: character, dialogue, villain, hero/heroine, three-dimensional

Procedure: Gather your students around a large table, making sure that everyone can see. I have everyone take a step backwards to make the oval big enough so no one is blocked. If kids lean forward, people behind him are blocked.

I put a bit of vaseline on the finger I’m going to make the puppet on--usually the non-dominant index finger. Dip a plaster strip in the can and stroke it to remove the holes. Wrap LIGHTLY around finger and repeat two more times. Don’t make it too long on your finger and don’t make it too tight. It will harden quickly and you don’t want it to get struck! Explain this to your students. (So far, I’ve never had a student get one stuck.)

Scrunch a dampened piece or two or three into a ball to make a head and press it down. You have to be very patient doing this, since until it dries, it will tend to fall off. Add a snout, ears, paws, hind legs, a tail, etc. Work quickly so that wet sticks to wet better.

If you want to make something more complicated such as a butterfly, you need to use pipe cleaners to wrap around your form. Fold a piece of aluminum foil over the shapes to make it more solid and then cover with the plaster pieces. Make sure that you “activate” the pieces as you work.

When ready to paint, encourage the students to make a base coat on the sections and then to add details. You don't want little flecks of white showing through. When dry, students may use sharpie markers to draw fine details, if you like. Gluing on feathers, glitter, eyeballs, etc. is also an option. I use a hot glue gun for this, monitoring the students well, depending on their age.

Reflection: Follow-up: Make a puppet theater out of a large appliance box for students to use in the classroom. Add a real curtain.

130-Paper Sculpture

Paper Sculpture (K- adult)

Aim: •To explore the possibilities of paper as a sculptural materials

Materials & Tools:
multicolored construction paper
scissors
cardboard piece to act as base
glue, glue brush, glue container
scotch tape

Procedure:
Cover the cardboard bases, book cover style. Briefly demonstrate to students some of ways paper can be made three-dimensional. Tell them they are going to find their own ways of working and let them loose.

Reflection:
These can be hung on a wall to great effect.

130-Stuffed Sculpture

Stuffed Craypas Resist (K- adult)

Aims: •To create 2D Paper
•To turn that paper into 3D sculptures

Materials & Tools:
white paper--(18 x 24 or 12 x 18 works well)
craypas or crayons
watercolor paint, brushes, water cans
scissors
pencil
stapler, staples
newspaper (for stuffing)
Yarn or string

Procedure:
Have a theme in mind when you begin this project. Some themes I have done in the past have been owls, fish, butterflies, flowers and strange creatures.
The first part is the making of the paper. Show your students how to use craypas-especially the light colors--pressing hard on the paper to make lines. Then the oil resists the watercolor and the lines appear. Have each student make two pieces of paper.
When dry they can begin the project. Have your students draw their shape on the white side of the paper and cut out. I get them to make big shapes by touching both sides of the paper.
Place the next piece under the cut out shape and trace, but be sure to have both painted side together. You have to make opposite shapes or it won’t work. Read the last two sentences again!!!
Staple around the edges, leaving a pocket for stuffing. Crumple up newspaper and stuff. Staple closed and punch a hole for a string or staple over a string and knot.

Optional: Add glitter, googly eyes or feather to jazz up your sculptures.

Note: Skinny shapes won’t stuff well.

Reflection:
Hang up in your room.

Make a Cover for Your Sketchbook

Sketchbook/Journal Assignment

ARTS 130-Professor J. Healy

Make a Cover and Amaze the World!

On your Sketchbook/Journal, front and back, you are challenged to create an artwork that will use some of the techniques, art elements, materials and ideas you have explored this semester. Your work might be collaged. It might be painted (especially if you have your own acrylics). It could be mixed media of any kind. It might have words. It might not. It might be an optical illusion. It might fool us as to what might be inside. Tear and rip. Drip. Splash. Cut. Fray. Use a 000 brush. Use a piece of clothing. Give it a pocket. Or zipper. NO RULES EXCEPT THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE FUN WITH THIS.

Do note is that you should NOT use any material that will smear or blow off. No pastels, no oil pastels, glitter, and nothing that will end up sticky or gross to touch!

Due next class.