We began by finishing our texture collages, that we made in week 1, by drawing around our creature or city scene to add details or an environment. To do this we had 3 drawing utensils: graphite, conté and a blending stick. Graphite is familiar to us now, but conté was new. It's kind of like really compressed chalk or pastel. The blending stick is quite simply cardboard rolled into a pencil shape, but it works well to blend the graphite, softening and spreading it.
After this it was onto the main event, dressing our puppets. Donnely brought some "wigs" of colourful wool and tons of recycled fabric and ribbons in all different patterns. The designers were allowed to take lots of different items and were encouraged to create several outfits for their puppet. While hair-pieces and buttons were glued on, capes, dresses and shirts are attached using ribbon, so they can be interchanged depending on what our puppets get up to!
At the end of the workshop, we sat in a circle and everyone introduced their puppet - by name and by species! We will keep these characters at school so that we can use them for some fun drama activities, but of course all our amazing work will come home eventually. For now, please ask your designer all about his/her puppet - what it looks like, where it lives and what it likes to do.
Thanks again to Donnely for the incredible workshops, including all the set-up, take-down and materials!