A Few Marionettes From Last Week’s Art Camp

A few of my students with their marionettes

My first week long art camp at the Art Student’s League of Denver ended on Friday and whew – we finished each and everyone of the marionettes!  Time was tight, however, and I was sweating bullets to have them completely assembled by the end of class at 4:00pm.

Since it was the first time I taught this class, I learned a ton.  For one thing, this might be a little ambitious for the younger kids in the class – though not all.  I also realized that I need to do quite a bit of the prep work ahead of class to save time.  It’s amazing how fast 3 hours passes!  For the most part, the marionettes were a success.  I was starting to feel a little worried that it was too tough for the kids or that they weren’t  having any fun, but after asking them point blank, all the kids said they were having a blast.  I suppose I shouldn’t be so self conscious in the future.

Claire, age 10 with her horse woman marionette

All of the kids were quite creative with their designs which created a bit of a challenge for me and my assistant.  I created my prototype and all of the templates based on a standing figure – so when a few of the kids designed a different type of character, such as the horse/woman, we had to put our thinking caps on to make them work.

Haley, age 10 with “Camp Dork”

Some kids really ran with their ideas!  I wondered if “Camp Dork” was a sort of self portrait since Haley was enrolled in many different camps this summer since both her parents work full time.

Despite only being 8 and entering 3rd grade this fall, Marielle created a terrific marionette named “Rosy”

Rosy is an art cat with paintbrush in hand, beret cocked to the side on his head and magnificent yellow wings.  Marielle was one of the kids in class who was quite a perfectionist and had a very specific idea of what she wanted her marionette to look like.  In fact, after not finding the right fabric for her cat in class, she brought some orange felt from home to finish him.  I was so excited to see her finished piece and also amazed at her craftsmanship.

Ben, age 10 also made a non-figurative marionette of bacteria

There were probably 5 kids in the entire class of 17 that chose something entirely different and creative.  It’s one of the main reasons that I enjoy teaching kids because they think outside of the box a good bit of the time.  Their creativity hasn’t been drilled out of them yet.

Emma, age 9 created her opera singing marionette

Emma did a fantastic job with her character, especially with accessories and sculpting the clay pieces.  If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you will see quite a unique head along with some amazing shoes and feet.

Anna, age 9, created a foot marionette

I’m not sure if you can see the head – it’s actually 5 toes with a crocheted hat.  Another creative challenge for me to help her see her design to completion.

Ellie, age 8

Despite being one of the younger kids in class, Ellie did not need much help making her piece.  She was enthusiastic and had some definite ideas of how she wanted hers to look.

Maud, age 9 one of the Yugioh characters

I’m so out of the loop – when Maud was making her marionette, I had a hard time remembering that it was a Yu-gi-oh.  In fact, Yugiohs must be the hot new kid thing.  More than one kid was talking about them and I even had to reprimand one of my students who brought his Yugioh trading card collection to class every day.  I would catch him talking about his cards and looking through them instead of making his marionette.  Come to think of it, he didn’t finish his marionette by the end of class because we didn’t get the control bars attached to his piece.  But, he didn’t seem to care – his mind was elsewhere.

Liz, 8 years, self portrait

Liz did a terrific job with her marionette.  Since I had 17 kids in the class, it was a big surprise to see everyone’s pieces assembled since I couldn’t spend a ton of time individually with each child.  I realized by day 4 that I would need to attach the control bars and strings to the kid’s marionettes for them on the last day so that moment was really the big reveal of their work to me.

Overall, it was a good experience, though I was thoroughly exhausted by the end of class on Friday.  If I plan on teaching this class again, I’ll need to tweak my lesson to make it just a little easier for the younger kids or offer it to older children with longer attention spans and manual dexterity.

Meanwhile, I start teaching a printing on clay art camp tomorrow.  I’m definitely more relaxed this week and am looking forward to switching gears a little bit.  I’ve made my clay slip for the slip transfers we’re doing tomorrow and need to pack my gear so that I’m ready to go early morning.

Have a good week,

~Cynthia