John Roberts is one of Britons most acclaimed master puppeteer's. His company Puppetcraft tour all over the world and he makes puppet for the likes of Jim Henson and the Royal Shakespeare company. This week I am lucky enough to be participating in one of his workshops. Run at West Dean Collage in Sussex it is the first one that John has run here, but he has been teaching for many years.
My class in made up of 7 very enthusiastic amateur puppet carvers. All with varying levels of experience, using different mediums. For this course we will be carving marionette or rod puppets from wood either lime (my favorite wood to carve) and Jellitong.
This mornings class began with us being handed a piece of paper and told to draw our ideas. I had been a bit off a swat and done some sketches in the right sort of size before I arrived. We then gathered in the middle of the room and each of our drawing were talked through, so the bits that would work the ones that would not, what we needed to consider when carving the puppet, things like which way the wood grain runs and how strong a certain section needed to be. Then we all went back and made the relevant alterations. As always my puppet is the smallest must peoples are about 26" mine will be lucky if she is 17" when finished. I don't know why I find making big things so difficult but I do, I did try and get away with making her about 12" but he would not let me.
Once our designs are finished we needed to consider which type of joints we would use. Most puppets have several different types depending on their size and what sort of performance you want them to give. I really am not bothered as to how beautiful or functional my little one is, all I want to do is learn as much as I can in the 5 days. So We have decided that mine will have the joints that I will find the most useful when it comes it making my dolls as well as the puppets.
After tea (there are a lot of tea breaks on this course, but they are at set times so not to bad) we cut out the chest, this is the top half of the body. The body is drawn as one piece but made as two, this give you optimum movement. We spent much of the day carving this to shape. The arms were cut out next they are cut in one piece but will be split to insert the elbow joint. I will be using a leather joint for this, they are simpler to make than a spilt joint and less time consuming. Its also one of the major joint types that are used in puppets of her size. The arms are simply rounded off and will be shaped more once the joint is in.
Today was a long day, 13 hours of wood carving. It was very enjoyable and the time passed quickly but I am tied, I will go to bed dreaming of puppet joints tonight, I think. I want to get the most out of this class and 5 day is not really very many so I have to pack as much learning in as I can, but I can always come back next year as well.
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