Practicing Digital Tricks

It’s been awhile.

Here we have Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick, whose Twitter slogan is “Commissioner with a hard left hook.” I don’t follow politics, but I think he’s kind of amazing.

Whippet good.

Ode to Summer Being Nearly Over.

Reddit Gets Drawn

I recently joined Reddit (woohoo, time waster!) and discovered a subreddit in which people around the world post photos in the hopes that one of the artists in the community will draw them. It’s a surprisingly good drawing prompt. I wish people posted more pet pictures though.

Molly Cottontail Puppet

Despite my long-lived passion for puppetry and toy theater, I haven’t made many of my own puppets, and none of them were very sophisticated. Recently, however, all that changed when I ran into Andy Furgeson of Red Yarn Puppetry, a local one-man wunderkind whose folk music/puppetry/education performances are growing steadily in popularity in the Portland area.  He needed a new character for his pantheon and no time to make it, so I stepped in to create Molly Cottontail, the female counterpart to his main character Bob Rabbit.  I’m completely stoked that I managed to whip her out in just three days, considering that I’d never made a moving-mouth puppet before, and I hadn’t even busted out my sewing machine in a couple years.  My dog loves her, too.

I started with measurements from the pre-existing Bob Rabbit and sort of winged the rest.  Andy and I decided that she should be a lighter color than Bob and have rounder ears, but he left the rest up to me.  To make her, I used faux fur, reclaimed upholstery velvet swatches, felt, deerskin, floral wire, found plastic sheeting, and corduroy. She’s stuffed with polyfill and rice, to make her feet heavy.

I had a blast making her, and now that I’ve learned how to make moving-mouth puppets, the sky’s the limit!