Home shadow theater

This is a quote from Dushka_li’s post Original postdo it yourself: Home theater of shadows. Master Class

Every child is capable of creativity. If you are not yet sure of yours, then the creative principle in it is still dormant. Rather be it! For example, play theater – shadow theater. Such representations develop both speech and fantasy. And they won’t let you get bored.

You can add effects if you want. If you draw the scenery on a transparent film with stained-glass paints, and place the drawing between the lamp and the actors, the performance will become a little colored.

Remember that the lamp must be located between the screen and the person.

materials

foam board sheet 100x140cm 3mm thick
tracing paper sheet 86×62
PVA glue
5 paper napkins for decoupage with a star pattern (preferably golden)
blue acrylic paint
glitter glue or universal glitter contour
thin wire 1 mm thick – 50 cm
very thick wire – 3 mm thick – 250 cm or metal children’s headbands with a thickness of about 1 mm and a width of about 3 mm – 4-5 pieces
cardboard

Tools

thick craft knife
ruler
scissors
pliers
wire cutters
pencil
synthetic brush no. 7
sponge
awl

By the way
Foam board can be replaced with any other cardboard. The advantages of foam board are that, with light weight, it is quite rigid, easy to cut, holds its shape well, is resistant to moisture, easily glued and is ready for applying paint and any other decor. You can buy it in a large store for artists.

1 Cut out a 50×70 cm rectangle from foam board. Draw parallel lines inside the rectangle at a distance of 6 cm from each side. Cut out the inner rectangle outlined by them with a breadboard knife. Got a frame.

2 To turn the frame into a screen, you will need a sheet of tracing paper 100 x 70 cm, folded in two across the long side. Carefully glue the tracing paper onto the frame with PVA glue. Where there is no fold, first glue one layer, then the second.

3 Screen legs can be made simple or curly. For simple legs, we need 2 isosceles triangles with sides of 30 cm. The screen on curly legs will look more complicated, but more beautiful. Leg diagram here.

4 From tracing paper you need to cut out 4 strips 4 cm wide and as long as the width of the legs. Attach the leg to the bottom of the frame at a right angle. Using PVA glue, glue a strip of tracing paper so that it connects the frame and leg. Half of it should be glued to the frame, and half to the leg. The connection should be butt, but note that the legs should fold. The same operation must be repeated on the reverse side of this leg. Glue the second leg in the same way.

5 Cut out a strip of 57×7 cm from the foam board. This will be the stage-shelf of our theater. It can also be made foldable. To do this, draw a line parallel to the edge at a distance of 1 cm and cut it along the entire length with a breadboard knife so that the last layer of cardboard remains intact. Glue the part with a width of 1 cm with PVA glue to the frame on the same side as the legs, where the screen begins. The stage allows the puppeteers to navigate the screen space and the characters will “stand on the ground” instead of “floating in the air”.

6 The theater is assembled, now it can be decorated. Cut out the stars from the napkin and separate the extra layers – for work we need only the first, colored layer of the napkin. Attach the stars to the foam board, circle and cut along the contour with a breadboard knife.

7 Use small and large stars to decorate the screen and its legs using the direct decoupage technique. To do this, place the star on the surface of the cardboard so that all the rays match. Drop PVA glue in the middle and smear the glue with a brush from the center of the sprocket to the edges with light short strokes. Decorate the frame with stars in the same way. Draw dots and swirls on the stars with a glitter outline.

8 When the applications are dry, paint the frame on both sides, as well as the legs, with blue acrylic paint. It is best to apply the paint with a piece of sponge in a rotating motion, as if drawing curls. The paint will lay down unevenly, so the background will look voluminous and deep, like the night sky. Let the paint dry, then glue the cardboard stars to the frame with PVA glue.

9 For the action figures, you will need thin cardboard for crafts. Transfer the character pattern to cardboard, cut it out and pierce the junction of the parts with an awl. Cut a small piece from the wire – about 3 cm. Using round-nose pliers, bend one end of the wire into a loop. Insert the free end of the wire into the hole, fastening two cardboard parts. Twist the other end of the wire as well. Such an impromptu carnation quite firmly connects the cardboard parts, while allowing them to be movable.

10 We, the puppeteers, will drive the actors with the help of special tools. Bend one end of a piece of 50 cm thick wire with a hook the other end – and on the other side with a loop, so that it is convenient to hold on to it. The hook-like end of the wire, in theory, should be attached to the doll on one side. But experience suggests that the rod is most conveniently made removable. And on the doll, provide a special loop for which to hook the hook.

11 Instead of wire for making a puppeteer’s tool, you can use thin metal children’s hair bands. If they are unbent, then very convenient flat rods are obtained for controlling the puppets.

12 The loop is done like this. Attach a rod to the figure, glue the hook-like end with a piece of tracing paper, like a plaster. When the glue dries, pull it out like a plaster, then hold it for a while and carefully stick the rod out from under the tracing paper. If you make “pockets” for the rods on both sides of the figure, then you can drive the doll from right to left and from left to right.