Ok, my fingers are feeling much better now… So yesterday I had my shadow puppetry class with Reach Out (one more class left, next week). I had eight patterns, all of roughly different levels of skill and all of different design. There was: a (vampire) bat, a spider, two dogs (more explanation on that later), the tiger that’s available in my shop, a simpler version of the fish that’s available in my shop, a frog, a dancing woman, and a running man. I also brought with me my large screen and a light, so we could test out the puppets once we made them; oh, and some pre-made rods.

Last time you’ll recall, I had one participant for the class. This time I was promised five. I got two.  Never mind; we happily rolled on. Tony (all names changed to preserve anonymity), the sole participant last class, came again; I’m so glad he did, not only because he didn’t like doing the sock puppets, but also because it turns out he liked the shadow puppets better!

Anyway, so while we were waiting for other people to turn up, he and the helper, Betty read my handouts. Just as they were finishing reading, the second participant turned up, Ann. She sat down and immediately wanted to make a cat, she drew one and asked if she could make it. I said sure, but showed her the tiger pattern anyway, and suggested that she try that first, since it was already drawn up. She really wanted to make the cat she drew, so between the two of us Betty and I made up a pattern based on the drawing. Betty drew the main pieces, and I created a more detailed face based on the drawing. Actually, we pretty much made the puppet for Ann - she needed extra help - and covered the back of the facial features with red cellophane. She left early, and we didn’t get a chance to take a photo of the puppet (really wish I had, it turned out quite well). I also need to learn basic drawing skills; I feel like an idiot saying, "sure, we can make this puppet, but by the way, I can’t draw it for you". 

Anyway, Betty took on the task of making a fish for herself, and even though I simplified it down from the original pattern, it was still complicated enough that it took her most of the class to do. She even added some detail where I had left it off; and used the blue and red cellophane on the bottom fin to create a purple colour. She took to the shadow puppet making really well.

Tony first made a bat, as that looked the easiest to him to do. Good choice actually. This one has no parts to it: just one piece of cardboard, folded in half to make a flapping movement. There’s some detail to cut out, and he backed it with some red cellophane. He also made my spooky spider - it’s a free tutorial on my Learn Online page - which he quite liked. Only one problem and that was the brads that Betty had gotten were somewhat big, and I really should have resized the spider too. Nevertheless, both came out well, and Tony went away much happier with his building skills, and his puppets. (He named his sock puppet "Captain Unco" in honour of him thinking he’s uncoordinated)

The hardest part of the class for me was actually explaining how to attach the rods; to get them on a right angle to the cardboard, you have to attach them a certain way, and I think perhaps I need a better explanation than what I had. Nevertheless, first time teaching shadow puppets (haha, I’ve been doing shadow puppets for an entire year now, and only had one 3-hour class learning how to do them myself! Pretty neat!) and it went really well. I think perhaps that shadow puppets suit me in more ways than one.

I made some puppets too: the dancing woman and the frog. Most of these patterns I hadn’t tested, and I’m glad to say that the frog and woman worked exactly as planned.  Next week I have my final class with Reach Out and we’ll be doing table-top puppets.

The dog patterns by the way, will be made available here for free once I have a video tutorial done. The other new patterns will be available to buy in the future.

(I’m also testing the tags/related posts generator with this post. Will it work…?)