It's a puppet!

So I've been missing for an age because of exams and stuff, but I thought I'd show you guys my latest crafty piece. It's something I haven't posted about this before but I make puppets, I have made 4 so far, they take a lot of work but it's quite good fun. Anyway, this is an exam piece which means I wasn't allowed to post about it until after the exams were over and corrected. We haven't got any results back yet but I know it's been corrected so I thought I'd share.

She was made in accordance with the theme "A Slave to Fashion". I decided to create a model who takes the ideals of fashion to the extreme. I created a wooden skeleton and used brass hooks and eyes for her joints. Her body is made first from newspaper to bulk out her shape, then I used plasticine (I couldn't find any air-drying lightweight clay) to mold the protruding ribs and collar bones etc. Then I used, I can't remember the name of it, but it's a superlightweight builders polyfiller, I used that over the plasticine to give me a solid, fairly smooth surface I was able to paint. Most importantly her body remained light. I fashioned her hands, feet and head in the same way.

I then painted her and began to add details. I painted in shadows around to make the molded bones stand out. I didn't have a huge amount of time so I simple painted eyes, lips and eyebrows on. I shortened and glued false lashes on and with my hot glue gun I glued on cheap hair extensions before cutting them to my desired length.

Her clothes were incredibly simple. I bought a cheap thin summer scarf and tied knots into the corners. I wrapped them around her neck, halter style and knotted them together, then added a few stitches to secure.

I then draped the cloth and pinned it together starting just at the base of her spine and running to her feet. I, very quickly, I was running out of time! stitched it together and created a hem at the length I wanted. And that's about it.

This was part of my Leaving Certificate Art exam, I chose the craft option and puppetry within that. I was able to craft the shape of her body post exam, and then during the exams I had 5 hours to do everything else. I was working until the last second. As part of the art exam I had to do a 15 minute full body life sketch, and a 30 minute "significantly detailed" head to elbow sketch.. I also did a big still life piece. The final element of my Art exams was an art history paper which I had to study pre-christian art and renaissance art. 

Now I just have to cross my fingers and hope that I get a good grade for it. I am praying for at least a B1 (80%)