Making Your Puppets Move, Carrie Carrot, Apple Pirate, Turnip The Tusker, Eggbert Hand Puppets
Manipulation, or making puppets move, is not so easy as it might seem. At first you are likely to move them too much and too rapidly. Remember that your puppets are small. Their movements should be small and precise. The great advantage of hand puppets over marionettes is that they are truly alive - there is a living hand inside. So it is all right for them to stand still now and then, because they always vibrate with life. In front of a mirror practice every kind of movement - a questioning tilt of the head, a shrinking away in fright, a slow suspicious swing of the nose.
11.CARRIE CARROT HAND PUPPET
She is made from a fat carrot with the big end up. Her
nose can be a colored thumb tack, a glass tack or a button held in place by a pin. Cut her
eyes out of paper and pin them on. Make her lips from paper or a bit of orange slice. Use
a scouring pad for hair. For her skirt, grip the carrot as you did the salad spoon and
drape an instant body.
12.TURNIP THE TUSKER HAND
PUPPET
Find a turnip with a long, curled-up end like an elephant's trunk. With an
apple-corer bore a hole in the bottom for your first finger. Add thumb tack eyes, round
paper ears and toothpick tusks.
13.THE APPLE PIRATE HAND PUPPET
Bore a hole in the bottom of a shiny apple for your
finger. Pin on a mustache of black paper and a black eye patch, as in the drawing of him
at the very back of the book. Add a cardboard ear with a notebook paper reinforcement for
an earring. Tie a bright bit of cloth around the top of the head. Use a bright
handkerchief for the pirate's instant body.
14.EGGBERT HAND PUPPET
Bore a small
hole in one end of a fresh egg and a larger hole in the other end. Blow through the
smaller hole, and the inside of the egg will push out. Now you can paint a face with water
colors and add a piece of fuzzy cloth for hair. Carefully enlarge the neck hole and slip
Eggbert on your first finger.