Making Papier-Mache Marionette Puppets Inspired by Characters in a Historical Painting
By Jan Miller
This resource is part of a collection called Teaching Art to Year Three.
Children wanted to tell the story illustrated in a historical painting to younger children. They chose Penelope with the Suitors 1509 by Pintoricchio, (displayed in the National Gallery, London). They investigated historical puppets and dolls and thought marionettes would allow most animated movement. They wanted to be ambitious with colour and add decorative textiles. Some made Penelope and some made suitors.
Week 1 Designing the puppet
As well as old master paintings of suitors, antique dolls were used as inspiration for designs. It showed the children the large scale of materials used when making small dolls.
They created a labelled drawing of their design and were encouraged to be ambitious with colour and creative with their ideas.
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Robyn P
September 30, 2021 @ 6:17 am
This project looks fantastic. I decided to give it a go myself before delivering it to my learners. It took me over an hour to make my basic shapes before even Paper Mache was added. I don’t really think my Year 3’s would be able to do this easily . They could work in pairs but teacher support would be limited as it would just me me and also if they worked in pairs they would not each be able to take their own home. Is this not perhaps better suited for a year 6????
Paula
September 30, 2021 @ 12:18 pm
Hi Robyn and thanks for your comment. As with all our resources we try not to categorise too heavily which year work can be done with – there is so much variation in terms of where children are at. Jan did this with year 3 children – but she will be the first to admit her children get a lot of art time so are pretty skilled… in other schools yes the project may be better suited to other year groups. It will definitely take longer with less able / younger children – but that’s ok because they are learning so much. Working in pairs to help each other can still mean they work on their own sculptures – just helping each other when needed. Modroc would also be quicker than paper mache (though has to be well managed ) https://www.accessart.org.uk/rio-2016/
You might also prefer to adapt a shadow puppet resource: https://www.accessart.org.uk/shadow-puppets-and-whiteboards/ (that was done with yr 6’s but can be doen with much younger children). One things for sure they need the practice to manipulate materials! Even if it is hard xx