Making: A Street Puppet

Puppets! I love 'em! I was brought up with Sesame Street and Muppets and found myself quite fond of large street puppets as an adult. It's been an interest I haven't explored until just recently. After multiple viewings of Beauty is Embarassing (Wayne White is my spirit animal!), watching an artist buddy prace around in her own huge puppet at an art festival, and seeing a large puppet at the Wild Rumpus in Athens I knew it was something I had to do.


Please, watch this documentary when you get the chance!


As with most projects, I start out with a vague idea in my head. I had a little sketch of an angel in my notebook, but other than that, just kinda winged it. The head is made from pink insulation foam from Home Depot. The hand is styrofoam covered in spackling paste.

NOTE: Don't make the hand out of foam and spackle. I just used supplies that I had around the studio. The spackle made the hands too heavy. Just trust me.

Painting the face. I took the photo with my feet for size comparison. I used pipe cleaners and hot glue for the eye lashes.

Wings from cardboard. Heart from cardboard and a battery operated string of LED lights. There's a painted hand.

A friend let me have a backpack frame and I used plastic zipties to attach two pvc pipes to the back. They're duct-taped at the top. This is the basic frame for the body. 

Ribbon as hair. There's a halo made from wire and a battery-operated string of lights. This puppet was going to be part of the local Christmas light parade so I made sure to light her up as much as I could. 

I used sheer curtains as her gown.


HERE'S ANOTHER TIP: Make sure your puppet can FIT into your transportation. I did not think of this until the DAY of the parade. I had about two inches to spare, but that was after about 20 minutes of wrangling the puppet into the back space of my Rav4.

Here she is all put together. There's a panel of tulle in front of my face. Enough to cover it but I could still see. We estimated she stood at a little over 9 feet tall. 

I made star luminaries for my daughter and her friends to carry in front of me. And my husband is hugging the puppet because we thought it would be funny.

Such a fun project! Since she was made of foam and fabric she didn't weigh too much. It was a mild night with no wind so I had very little trouble walking the parade. The hands became to heavy so I had my husband and friend carry them as they walked next to me.

As for the parade watchers, they seemed to like it. I heard lots of OOOOOhs and AAAAAAAhs and some EW CREEPY from little kids. But hey, it's all good. I tried it and had fun, that's all that matters.

I can't wait to make another one!