Tag Archives: recycled art

More New Fairytale Shadow Puppets…

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Here are more progress puppets for our upcoming show “Fairytales of Wit, Wisdom and Witchcraft” (CLICK HERE to find out more). I have overshot my initial estimate for how long it would take me to make all the puppets, but if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well and taking a little more time, I feel.

We have here now the puppets for “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, “The Three Billy Goats Gruff”, “Little Red Riding Hood” and a few puppets for “Chicken Licken” or “Chicken Little” as I believe it is better known in America.

As I said in my previous post, (CLICK HERE TO VIEW) I have been using cereal and pizza boxes for environmental reasons and to show how much is possible using recycled materials. The cutting out has been with a combination of scissors, craft knife and Indonesian Shadow Puppet Chisels for some of the cut out details.

Making an articulated Goldilocks puppet that will be able to sit down in chairs…
Starting a Baby/Little Bear Puppet…
Mother/Middle sized bear started…
Finished Little/Baby and Middle sized/Mother Bear
Starting Big/Father Bear…
3 finished Bears together
Big Billy Goat Gruff…
Finished Big Billy goat and starting Middle sized Goat…
Middle sized goat and Little Goat started
The body is good but the head is too small, so a larger one is made
3 Billy Goats Gruff
Middle sized Goat has finishing cut out touches added
Starting the Troll…
Trial of elasticated jaw mech.
Drawing a Granny to go with Wolf and Red Riding Hood already complete…
Wolf’s head blown up on photocopier to make large articulated wolf’s head for swallowing people whole/talking
finished head with Granny drawing and puppet making list…
Granny roughly cut out with wolf in bed drawing…
2nd Wolf Head with Granny’s cap and glasses created by drawing round the first one
Separate bed and Granny head and bloated snoozing wolf started…
Snoozing Wolf on bed
Snoozing wolf with articulated tummy
Top half of Woodcutter
Complete Woodcutter with axe and scissors
Woodcutter and snoozing wolf
Fox for Chicken Licken
Fox, Chicken Licken and Acorn

If you have a question or a comment about the puppets do please put it on the post, I always to try to reply 🙂

I am taking bookings for this show and accompanying workshops from August 2025 onwards. It is particularly suitable for schools and libraries and fits in nicely with the light and shadow and traditional tales (fairy tales) topic.

If you need a show or a workshop sooner than this, do get in touch as I have many existing shows and workshops that we can do to meet your needs. Just get in touch and I will be happy to supply quotes and talk to you about your needs/event. We have puppet shows and workshops for indoors and outdoors, festivals, community events, theatres, youth theatres etc. CLICK HERE to contact me 🙂

Theatres or theatre companies please get in touch for puppet commissions, training, residencies, collaborations etc.

To stay up to date with this project and all my news, please subscribe for the newsletter.

If you want to see Rough Magic Theatre live, our Mad Hatter’s Tea Party show will be coming to Congleton Food Festival again this coming Sunday. More details on the WHERE YOU CAN SEE ME page.

This coming Saturday a long awaited new “Al & Kai’s Faboo News” episode will be premiering on You Tube. Subscribe to channel so you don’t miss it (@faboonews). Visit FabooNews.com to find out more about this fantastic puppet based positive news show for families.

Mechanical Horse Gets a Room With a View

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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All the bits of our mechanical horse and cart are now fully completed.  I have also finished my mechanical M.C. costume, though I am still working on one or two little props and things.

I am currently working on a loud-hailer made from a reclaimed traffic cone.

We had got various different parts of the horse assembled at various times, but it was a very nice moment when we finally had everything, apart from the little buggy for people to sit on, connected together.  One of the reasons we haven’t had everything connected at once while we’ve been making it, is the issue of space.  The issue of space to make and space to store the horse has been dogging us from the beginning of the project.

For this reason, it was great to hear we had a shop window to display the horse in for the week preceding the performance on June 2nd.  If you are in the area, you can see it in the window of Bentham Imaging on Main Street, Bentham.  Not only that, but we will be doing the performance directly outside this shop on the day, so it is very convenient.  Ali Jones from Pioneer Projects, (who commissioned the project for the “My Last CARnival” day), was very keen on getting it into a shop window as, when it comes out for the performance, it will be like it coming out of its stable.

I also came up with the name of “Fred Fettler” for our inventor character played by Tim Austin, who will be in the driving seat of the machine.  Having not come up with any better ideas I have plumped for the “Pony 3000” as the name of the vehicle.  The “3000” is meant to indicate that it is from the year 3000 as the pedal powered horse is meant to illustrate an idea of what the future of transport could be.

Here are more pictures of the work in progress:

We have also been booked for the Buxton Puppet Festival since my last post, which is happening at the end of July.  We will be doing a Shadow Puppet workshop in the morning and two afternoon performances of Alice in Wonderland on Tuesday the 24th.  See the “Where You Can See Me” page for more details.