Punchinello Says Hello

I made this hand puppet several years ago for my sculpture project in college.  I hand sculpted his head and hands out of paper mache and then painted him with acrylic paint.  I hand made his gold beads; designed and sewed his costume.  From the top of his hat to the bottom of his clothing is about 18".  His poor collar is very distorted from being packed away in storage.  It was made with gold wired edged fabric ribbon.  Awhile back when I was re-packing items getting prepared for moving, I took pictures of some art I created to send to my pen-pal in Nova Scotia, Canada.  These pix were taken quickly before packing them away again.

Remember Punch and Judy?  How Punch had a stick and wailed on Judy or threatened her?  Well, he was a modern version of this old Italian clown.

A bit of history for ya: 
Pulcinella, often called Punch or Punchinello in English, Polichinelle in French, is a classical character that originated in the Commedia dell'arte of the 17th century in Italy and became a stock character in puppetry. His main characteristic, from which he acquired his name, is his extremely long nose, which resembles a beak. In Latin, this was a pullus gallinaceus, which led to the word "Pulliciniello" and "Pulcinella", related to the Italian pulcino or chick.  End of history lesson!

He used to have a big box that was his stage that I made out of a cardboard box and covered with striped purple and lavender wallpaper and made fabric side curtains.  That is long gone and I don't have a picture of it, sorry.  He looked rather cute hanging out in his box/stage.

My son who was young and in grade school at the time thought he was scary.

I think I got an "A" grade on it.

Thanks for stopping by!