Archives for category: Hand Puppets

At the moment I feel like my Nosy Neighbour puppet. In this image by Sonya Roussina he looks pretty depressed. Everything seems to have come to a halt, even though I have so many things nearly finished… My dede puppet film is done, but I can’t put it up on Youtube before I have one more thing sorted on our Web page. I was so sure I will publish both this weekend, but now this weekend is gone and it still isn’t up. Ah well… Such is life. I still haven’t started on my Procrastinator puppet either.

 

 

Last weekend I finished my first puppet show clip. It’s only like a minute or so long. I am going to put it on Youtube this weekend. This is another first for me. The book publishing part was easy, as I dealt with the related issues all my working life. I am a paper person… But, boy, had I fun making this clip. And I have plenty of ideas for more!

 

This painting is called “Who is scared of the bogeyman”.

I noticed I have a three tier approach to my artworks. I am hesitant to show my paintings publicly, as I use the painting process to solve problems. The act of painting decelerates my speed. The resulting images are often quite scary. I personally don’t mind their scariness, but each and every image reminds me of the issue I dealt with at the time.

My photography and composite imaging is different.  I use it to explore moods as well as my surrounding and I don’t have a problem showing the pictures, as long as I am reasonably happy with the outcome.

My puppets on the other hand, have a life of their own and I can’t shut up about them (: Even though they are very much part of me, they also reveal the least about myself. Throughout history, puppets were allowed to say what they wanted. I like that! I can always blame the character. I love their fun and their cheekiness. My paintings are no fun.

Here is Minor, the sloppy teenage daughter of Detail. Okay, sloppy according to her mother Detail. I think Minor is fourteen or fifteen, going on sixty. Her mother can’t do anything right by her either. OMG, you should hear how these two talk to each other, or… better not…

If you bump into Minor on her own, she is a very introverted little thing, a bit rough and careless about her appearance maybe. I personally think she has a great future, forget the messy bedroom and all.

The puppy is finally finished. It has been sitting in my studio from before the launch and I only needed to put the skin on. It was good that it took me a while, as in the meantime I came up with the story and chose the skin accordingly. Puppy is eternally in love with Skeleton Edeltraut. But the love is not returned. This will be a big part in the sequel to Hermit’s Web. Edeltraut is still going out with Monster and  cute little Puppy turns into a stalker.

I told some people the story already and was surprised how few got it that Edeltraut is the logical choice for Puppy’s desire.

A very nice side effect of this book project is: my skeletons seem to have moved on. I always thought I am good friends with my skeletons, but now that they are gone, I don’t miss them much.

 

 

Okay, I have uploaded Hermit’s Web onto fishpond. But of course I haven’t read the fine print when I originally investigated how to sell the book. The title has to be included in the Nielson Book database, before it can be sold via fishpond. I have filled in the form for Nielson last Saturday and emailed it off. When I uploaded the book info onto fishpond today I read, that it can take up to f o u r! weeks to be processed by Nielson and then another two weeks before fishpond actually starts selling it. OMG, in this time I can write the sequel.

Back to plan B. I need to get our own web page up-dated.

The three images I have put up today are from a series called “Gallery of ancestral portraits”. They are layered and scratched on wood blocks and are sitting on my mantelpiece. When I am painting without intention I always end up with sad faces.

 

 

It’s Friday again and looking back at the week it wasn’t a particularly successful one. I’ve set out to do all these things and I ended up with half finished jobs, jobs not started, as well as having done things that needn’t to be done this week and also dealt with stuff originally not anticipated. To cut a long story short, my to do list hasn’t changed much since Monday, but I haven’t been idle this week either. I guess that’s life.

Today I have four things to finish on my to do list and I hope I will have completed them by tonight. So, let’s not procrastinate further and get on with it.

So, the book is launched. I had my five minutes of fame, and now I am left with the minor problem of selling the print run. At the moment you can’t get the book anywhere else than in my office. And boy, every poor person who comes through the door, is greeted by three puppets and a grinning me. If they want it or not, they have to listen to my story and nobody leaves the room without having bought a book. It won’t be long and I will have exhausted all the people I know and I will  slide back into my hermit state, because everybody is avoiding me (just kidding).

Being a real artist, of course I have procrastinated the selling task.  I always said, once I have the books in my hot little hands, I will put them up on fishpond.co.nz (that is sort of the New Zealand answer to Amazon) and also on our own website. I dutifully read up about how to put a paypal button on a website and I am in the process of updating the website generally. Paypal says it takes 15 minutes to set up the button… Yeah right! I haven’t figured out yet, how you can charge different shipping costs for people here and overseas. But maybe I am just too tired now. Tomorrow is a public holiday in New Zealand and I will try with a fresh mind then. Thankfully, I have to sell books and not cream cakes. So it doesn’t matter if they are not sold by the weekend.

I have sent the 2 required copies to Legal Deposit Office of the National Library yesterday, that means that the book is now officially published in New Zealand. That’s at least something!

 

More launch images

I have put up a new page on my blog site with some images from the launch last week Thursday (click here). The images were taken by Sonya Roussina. It was really worthwhile to have a dedicated photographer there and not trying to take the images myself or ask my friends to do it.

I am pleased how well the format of the launch worked. It started at 7pm. The puppet show was scheduled for 7:15… I had asked my boss from the polytech, where I teach, to introduce me to the crowd before the puppet show. He was just brilliant. We had a talk for about 20 minutes and I could explain the art background of the puppets and my thoughts behind the entire project. And then I did a puppet show of maybe 5 minutes. Re-enacting what happened when the puppets found out that Hermit had written a book.

I am still smiling today…