Playing Pinocchio! - Week Four

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Playing Pinocchio! - Week Four... by Suzanne Kendall

More muppet making today! It was hard to believe that 'Maud' could be improved upon - she was already a real beauty! For a more thorough introduction to Maud, see last week's blog post... but once a bag of felt scraps was introduced to the room, opened and buried into, I began to get some ideas...!


I gave her eyes a flash of colour - a lovely, bright and seductive green. I gave her rosy cheeks and coloured in her lips so that she had more of a pout. Finally, I stuck on some eyebrows. Predictably, I accidentally stuck an eyebrow onto myself first - it attached itself to me with fresh, hot glue from the glue gun - ow! Those savage days in design and technology at school all came flooding back... a bit of a comedy act ensued with my jumping up and down and running round the room trying to remove the eyebrow from my blistering thumb with my fingers, only then of course to burn my fingers in the process! Needless to say I spent the next 10-15 minutes with my hands under a cold tap. Needless to say I developed 2 of the biggest blisters ever known to man (or muppet) over the following week. I'm on the mend now. How we suffer for our art! 

A new eyebrow was made (the other one flew off my hand in the commotion - never to be seen again) and Maud's face was completely realised and more stunning than ever!


Oli then showed us the next stage of creation - making a 'body' for the muppet by cutting into an old jumper at the neck - so your hand can slide through and into the muppets mouth to operate it, and at the elbow of one of the jumper's arms so your other hand can slide in and become the muppet's hand. 


I'll be hitting the charity shops this week to choose the perfect garment for Maud. 

 She's not even come to life yet in a practical sense but I certainly get a sense of her character...! 

 More next week from me - and Maud!

 Suzie x

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