Hampshire County Council Art News.
No.11. Summer Term 2005, p.53

The Lighthouse Keepers Lunch - A shadow-puppet workshop.

Usually when running shadow puppet workshops for children I work with cut-out silhouettes, but when I was asked by Mary O’Connor at Sylvan First School in Poole to use the popular book The Lighthouse Keepers Lunch as my theme, I decided that the technique of oiled card would probably be more appropriate.
I had not used this technique for such young children before, ( I would be working with years 1 and 2) and I was pleased at how well it worked for them.

The technique involves the children drawing a character on thin white card or heavy cartridge paper and colouring it in with standard water based felt tip pens. After cutting it out, they rub vegetable oil into the front and back of the puppet with cotton wool (making sure it is on a paper towel to absorb the overflow!) which renders the card translucent. It is astonishing how magical a simple drawing can become once it is oiled. The detail of the child’s illustration is greatly enhanced, and the texture of the card appears not unlike the vellum on which the early Chinese, Indian and Indonesian shadow puppets were painted.

In this case, because the children were quite young, and also because time was limited, I did not make articulated puppets with them, and indeed the story did not require it. (It can be done, however, by simply making one separate moving part and jointing it to the main body with a split pin.)

Once the puppets are oiled and blotted so that they feel quite dry, the control can be attached. I use bendy drinking straws which have to be stapled on as nothing will adhere to the oiled card. This is fine for limited use, but if the puppets were to be used repeatedly (e.g. for a performance) it would be worth sliding a piece of dowel or a garden stick into the straw and fixing it with tape.
Similarly, the oiled pieces of card can be laminated to strengthen them for repeated use.

There are various materials which can be used as shadow puppets screens: cotton sheeting, back projection cloth, even thin white paper, but on this occasion I decided to use a plain white shower curtain, suspended and loosely tensioned between two uprights.

For the light source I used the classroom overhead projector behind the screen. The advantages of this are its stability and safety, and the fact that small pieces of scenery can be projected onto the screen . Also, the position of the OHP, or a strategically placed piece of card, determines the height of the stage, so that the children’s heads are not visible. The disadvantage is that everything between the light source and the screen, including the controls and stray heads and hands, will cast a strong clear shadow.

Unlike silhouettes, oiled shadow puppets need to be held next to the screen in order to be visible, but the effect is quite stunning, and it is wonderful to see the children’s drawings brought to life.

I had divided the story of The Lighthouse Keepers Lunch in to six scenes so that the six groups of five children in each class of thirty could make all the characters for each scene. Thus we had six Lighthouse Keepers, (Mr. Grinling), six Mrs Grinlings, and numerous baskets, boats and seagulls. I put small silhouettes of the cliff-top cottage, the lighthouse, and a piece of string to be the connecting wire on the OHP which became the scenery. Our brief performances at the end of the hour long sessions were pretty rough and ready, but had the potential to be developed into something more sophisticated.

There are many reasons to make shadow puppets with children. There are the obvious connections with drama and music, but it encompasses issues of shadow and light, transparency, translucency, and opacity as part of science and technology. Also the way figures and objects are articulated can be incorporated into design and technology. As part of an art project, however, it covers many areas: shape and outline, drawing and cutting, and it certainly gives quick results with inexpensive materials. But the main advantage I believe is that simple drawings look extremely effective, therefore those with little ability in art can make spectacular images, and those with little confidence can communicate boldly from behind the screen.

Su Eaton (a.k.a. Artwoman) is a visual artist and published illustrator. She designs and makes puppet shows with her partner, Martin Bridle (a.k.a The Puppet Man ) and occasionally performs with him. She trained as an art teacher with drama as second subject, and offers art and shadow puppet workshops to primary schools.