My journey creating and producing puppetry... trials, tribulations, inspiration and contemplation.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

"Helping Drew" build

I never felt this project would be finished and now that it's nearing completion, it has me very excited. I am especially passionate about helping ease the bullying problem that still plagues our schools - something that was very prevalent when I was in school and sometimes made my experience less than happy.

As I wrapped up this build, I had one last character to create, the school principal. She started as a different build and then I switched gears and turned to the tried and true Project Puppet patterns.

A head was born and I stuck on a pair of glasses to size up the eyeglass look.

I had custom-dyed my first batch of antron fleece a beautiful purple hue. I was really excited by the results and even more excited to see it covering the new build.


I initially started with a human-style wig in dark, tight curls. I specifically wanted cat-eye style glasses for the puppet and headed to the party supply store that has a full line of costume accessories. I found a wonderful, bright pink wig that I knew would look better than the dark curls. Naturally, the puppeteer had to try on the accessories before the puppet.


In the end, the puppet looked better. I popped out the eyeglass lenses and traced them to a white foam sheet, making sure I cut just a little wider around the trace in order to glue them to the back of the eyeglass frames.



A completed puppet, with nose, was ready for an outfit. The next day, I was off to the mall to hit up the kids racks for some 2T/3T sizes.


I hit up the usual suspects - Children's Place and Old Navy as well as Bon Ton children's department. I get close and start to formulate an idea of what I need - a feminine 'blouse' and a sweater was on order for this build. My last stop was Sears and, I was happily surprised by my find. I think you'll see they all look perfect together and the puppet seemed to approve.


'Flo' joins the rest of her cast in the show "Helping Drew" which is being offered to K-5 elementary school assembly programs. Rehearsals begin soon and will be shopped at an arts in education showcase in late May.