“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…

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