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

“Sally” Mixed Media Marionette (clay, underglazes, wood, metal, fabric, thread, string & stuffing)

Since I’ve been a little long winded in my posts lately, this one will be mercifully short.  Long story short, I started teaching a kid’s summer art camp at the Art Student’s League of Denver yesterday afternoon and we’re going to be super busy through the end of the week making marionettes from a variety of art and everyday materials.  The kid’s have some great ideas and I love what they’ve come up with so far.

To aid in character development before they even started sculpting their clay bits and pieces, I had them sketch and describe someone (person, animal or fantasy creature) – favorite foods, pastimes, colors, likes, dislikes, what they’re good at etc. etc.

Here’s my story about Sally that I shared with the class:

“Sally (no offense to any of the other Sallies in the world) loves to sing and perform on stage. She’s not the cutest girl on the block, but she is very colorful and friendly. She loves her black patent leather Mary Jane’s because of the clippity clop sound they make when she walks. She wears them every day regardless of what she is wearing or where she is going, she even wears them to bed.

She didn’t have great dental care when she was a child, in case you didn’t notice. But, she makes up for it by wearing the reddest lipstick in the world. She hopes the red lipstick is just a little distracting when you see her out and about.  Sally also wears matching fire engine red finger nail polish just in case she gets any spontaneous requests for a song or two.  Believe me, it’s happened before.

She doesn’t care if her clothes match or not because she wears what she likes – especially if it’s colorful and has pretty patterns. ‘The louder the better’, her mom always says.

Sally came from a family of red heads – but somehow her hair turned out blazing orange. She thinks her orange hair helps people remember her and she stands out from the crowd even on a darkened stage. Sally also likes to wear all sorts of hair bows, accessories and jewelry though, she can’t seem to find her crown at the moment.

Sometimes, people make fun of her. This makes her a little sad, but not too much because she knows that she is talented and people will love her if only they could hear her sing.  She’s also a very good and loyal friend – pinky best friends.

Her favorite food is pickles with extra pickle juice on the side, unless she’s sick and then she likes ice cream. Vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce, whipped cream and a cherry – but she don’t want no nuts mama – thanks very much.”

I hope you like Sally, though I must tell you that she sort of scared my family after I introduced her to them.  She’ll grow on them over time – they just have to get to know her better.

Here’s Sally’s fancy black patent leather shoes

I don’t really know how old Sally is, except that she does enjoy a dirty gin martini once in awhile   (this must mean that she’s over 21 and if she’s anything like me, I’m 42 going on 13.)

I had a lot of fun with this project!  Now, I have to start on next week’s lesson plan.

Hope everyone is having a good week,

~Cynthia

P.S. I’ve put a lot of effort and time into making this lesson plan along with a few others that I’ve developed.  I’m considering putting an e-book together that I’ll make available for others to download.  That’s a future project though…

My daughter’s marionette that I’m using as reference

Teaching schedule

On Monday, July 14, I begin teaching 3 consecutive, back to back, week long kid’s summer art camps.  The first 2 camps will be at the Art Student’s League of Denver and the last one at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, CO (It ought to be really beautiful this time of the year in the mountains).  I’ll have a little break and then teach one more camp the week before school starts the latter half of August at the ASLD.  What this means, is that I have had to switch gears just a tad from making work and testing glazes to getting some of my projects together and making lesson plans for the classes.  The first class I’m teaching is “Mixed Media Marionettes”, the second class is titled “Beyond Silly Putty” and is basically different printmaking techniques on clay, and finally I’ll be teaching “Movable Clay Sculpture” at Anderson Ranch the last week in July.

Larry is my model for the marionette and clay sculpture class and the whole reason I have these opportunities to teach at both the ASLD and Anderson Ranch.  I should probably thank the ever talented and sassy Jafabrit, who put out a doll challenge last summer and Sarabeth Berk, the children’s education coordinator from Anderson Ranch who found Larry through my blog and asked whether I’d be interested in teaching a similar project at Anderson Ranch this summer.  Thank you to both of you, it’s started me on a very satisfying and creatively challenging teaching trajectory which complements my ceramic and art endeavors.

Mixed Media Marionettes

I’ve never actually made a marionette before, so I’ve had to do some research the past week before I could write my lesson plan and make the prototype – not to mention getting all supplies and tools together.  How do you know what you need if you’ve never done it before?  This did make sending in my supply lists challenging, since both schools wanted them well in advance (6+ months).  Luckily, I have some leeway and will be able to purchase a couple of extra items for reimbursement from both places.  The bonus is that if I teach anything similar next year, I’ll have the lesson plans and supply lists down pat.

I used my daughter’s marionette (see above) which we purchased at the Denver Puppet Theater a few years ago as my own teaching tool and I’ve nearly dissected her to see how she works.  I’m such a visual learner and seeing her innards has helped tremendously.   I also picked up a couple of books from the library for reference and to use during class.  Both The most excellent book of how to be a puppeteer by Roger Lade and The Hand-Carved Marionettes of Gustave Baumann by Ellen Zieselman have great images, give a little history and show how marionettes work.

Marionette Info: In addition to the books mentioned above, there are also several websites with good information such as:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marionette (a good brief history of marionettes)

• A marionette is a puppet controlled by strings, which are controlled by a puppeteer called a manipulator
• It is believed that puppetry is the earliest form of theater and pre-dates human actors
• Wire controlled puppets have been found in Egyptian, Greek and Roman tombs and are referenced in writing by Greek historian Xenephon, philosophers Aristotle and Plato, and Archimedes who is known to have worked with marionettes
• The Greek word for puppet is neurospasta, which translates to “string pulling”.  The Indian word sutradhar literally translates to “string puller” or “string holder”
• The term “marionette” emerged around 1600 in Italy while used by the Christian Church for morality plays and is connected with the Virgin Mary – however, when comedy started sneaking into plays, the church banned puppetry in churches and puppeteers started doing street theater.
• Bunraku emerged out of traditional Japanese puppetry in the 1600’s and is similar to marionettes
• In the 18th C operas were specifically composed for marionettes – Mozart, Gluck, Haydn, deFalla and Respighi all composed operas for marionettes
• Puppetry  goes modern – children’s TV shows & movies use marionettes (think Howdy Doody, Mr. Rogers, Jim Henson, Sound of Music).
• Puppetry goes high tech – Supermarionation a combination of marionettes + animation + mechanics

http://puppetbuilding.com/marionettes/ and a link to other sites http://puppetbuilding.com/puppet-builder-directory/marionettes links, videos and examples of puppets and marionettes

http://myiradofmarionettes.bravehost.com/Making.html example of easy marionette to make at home with common items

Here’s a page out of Popular Science Monthly, Feb. ‘36 showing marionette parts

All of the info gathering was necessary for me before I could even begin crafting my first marionette.  I knew that my heads, hands and feet would be sculpted using clay – it was the rest of the body that had me stumped.

Low fire earthenware clay a little larger than  a golf ball

After procrastinating just a bit, I realized I needed to make the prototype for the first class pronto.  I also wanted to simulate working in a 5 day time frame since this is our schedule next week for 3 hours a day.  Firing clay in a short time frame can be fatally dangerous – not to us, but to the clay pieces.  I normally dry my clay work anywhere from 1 – 3 weeks before bisque firing them to minimize any kiln blowups and other ware type accidents such as cracking and warping.

To minimize any kiln catastrophes, I used a small amount of clay for the head (a little larger than a golf ball – maybe 1/4 lb.), and lesser amounts for the feet and hands.  I made the clay bits on Thursday evening, then left them uncovered until Saturday.  On Friday, they were still cool to the touch, meaning that the pieces were still too wet to fire.  On Saturday morning the pieces had changed color to a lighter gray color and felt dry.  The reason explosions happen in the kiln is because the clay hasn’t dried out enough and when the water in the clay reaches boiling point in the kiln (which is less than when you boil water on the stove since it’s under pressure), the vapor from the steam escaping the clay has no where to go, so the piece explodes to relieve the pressure.

The initial clay head, feet and hands

I decided to make an additional/backup head just in case the first one blows up.  In fact, I’m going to have the kids in my class make additional parts as back up.  If all survive, they’ll have the pieces to make another marionette at home.  One note when I made these – I was thinking of specific personalities when I sculpted the heads.  I think that will also be a fun exercise for the kids whether the make human or animal forms.

I attached little loops of nichrome wire to the feet and top & bottom of the head

When making these, I knew I needed some way to attach the string that attaches to the control bars and the body of the marionette to create movement.  I punched holes in the hands and then added high temperature nichrome wire (has a melting temperature of 1400° C and I’m firing these to cone 05 around 560° C) to the heads and feet.

Painted using Duncan CC underglazes and Amaco LUG underglazes

I like my back up head better and am going to use her to make the marionette for my prototype.  I fashioned the first one to be a sort of self portrait   she’ll have blond hair and I even added a little nose piercing and appropriate mole placement just like my own – now she I just need some feet and hands.

I really want a pair of shoes and stockings to match in real life!

I originally thought I would glaze these with clear over the underglaze, but realize that it’s just not possible unless we once fire these.  I’ve come up with an alternate solution:  we’re going to add a gel medium to the clay parts which will add a nice little sheen and also protect the surface.  We could also add a wax for a soft feel – but this is something I’ll have to experiment with later.

Miter saw – use appropriate safety precautions

I even got to use power tools – which makes me feel so macho!  Since the age range for my class is 3rd – 5th grade, I had to do the cutting.  It just wouldn’t do to have a parent pick up their child from camp missing a finger or 2.  So, I pulled out the old miter saw after measuring the dowels for the hand controls and the 5″ x 2″ x 2″ wood blocks for the torso.  I have 18 kids enrolled in class (no worries – I have an assistant to help), so I need 18 torsos and 36 5″ dowel pieces for the controls.

Power hand sander

I also sanded the ends of the dowels and wood blocks so that no one gets a splinter.  My whole right hand and arm was vibrating after sanding all those pieces even after turning off the sander.  The feeling lasted for quite some time, much like it feels after you take off your skates or ski boots after having them on awhile.

I removed the clay parts from the kiln this morning after bisque firing them last night and I’m happy to tell you that all the pieces survived!  I did a really long kiln pre-heat on low with the kiln vented for about 6 hours before starting my firing program in an attempt to prevent the pieces from exploding.

Today, I’m sealing the clay parts with medium, gluing on hair and beads for the eyes, and will add a fabric body over the wood block torso, will add some stuffing to flesh out the body, sew some clothing and finally add the string and attach to the control bars.

So far, I’ve really enjoyed the process and feel like making more.  But, first, I must adapt the project for the class at Anderson Ranch titled “Movable Clay Sculpture” – never mind that I’ve never really made one before, unless you count Larry and now this marionette.  After making the marionette and Larry, however, I have a lot of good information and ideas to get started.

Update on cone 6 glaze testing:

Meanwhile, I have revised the Tony Hanson Pink Base Glaze #4 cone 6 recipe that I successfully tested last week with pink and violet Mason Stains and will fire these test tiles with some chrome and tin for a pinkish glaze (fingers crossed) – I might even do that today while I’m assembling my marionette since I won’t be in the studio inhaling glaze fumes.  I was also going to test some manganese and cobalt for a purple, but realized that I need a glaze high in MgO.  So first, I need to make up another test batch of the High Calcium Semi Matte from MC6G, since it is high in MgO – and the base glaze #4 has a negligible trace which is why the pinks form.

I normally maintain safe studio practices (especially with glaze mixing), but after reading more and more realize that I really should be hyper vigilant.  Manganese is a very dangerous oxide in its raw state – but it seems that several other ones that I use are up there too along with cobalt and copper.  What’s odd is that manganese is an essential trace nutrient for all life forms and our body stores 10mg of the element.  Anyway – way off topic….

Have a great week,

~Cynthia

Stay tuned for part 2