Freelance artist and puppet-maker, Marina Renne-Cemmick worked with Broomhill residents for 10 weeks to create spooky moving puppets ready for Galoshans.
Marina shared a range of techniques with the group, including how to create joints in the legs and arms, tips on how to shape a body accurately and keep the bodies in correct proportion, and how to make a mouth that spoke!
After creating our first puppets from newspaper and masking tape, we moved onto creating our Halloween-inspired characters using foam amongst other materials to shape the bodies. Between the group with had 3D realisations of Harley Quinn, Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas and our very own creations including a bird man and a pumpkin man.
As well as teaching us how to make the puppets, Marina also spent some time running through movement techniques, showing us that by focusing our own attention and gaze on the puppet, the audience would forget that the puppeteer was present. We were taught how to move the puppets to simulate breathing and how to make them walk with weight.
Puppet making is now completed and we’re back on with Mosaic Madness every Tuesday from 5-7pm with artist, Dawn Hair at the Art Flat, 12 Broomhill Court, PA15 4ET.
The Broomhill Project 