Grass Valley

The next stop on my photo tour was our shows in Grass Valley & Nevada City. I did miss a few shows along our summer.

This week was our busiest yet in the Bay Area! We arrived early (the day before our puppet show) and checked out the town. Grass Valley has a wonderful historic downtown area! It's very picturesque! Of course, we arrived so late most of the shops were closed! Tim and I did, however, managed to eat in the historic Holbrooke Hotel. It was a cute looking hotel and we'd have stayed there if we weren't already staying with friends!

Tiburon: An Audience Eye View

At our Tiburon show I thought it would be interesting to snap a photo from the audiences perspective. Here is the result of that snap. The stage just seems massive!

Get thee to Puppetvision!

Andrew over at Puppetvision posted this awesome video of Raymond Crowe, a puppeteer from Australia, performing THE most amazing hand shadow show EVER! Set to "It's a Wonderful World". Go see it RIGHT NOW!

Many Thanks to Elizabeth Luce for forwarding this to me today (via I Am Bored). But, as Andrew posted this a bit ago, I wanted to make sure to send over to him!

The Secret to My Sucess!

Coffee!!



This (the procurring and drinking of coffee) is a MAJOR part of the summer tour! Especially on a three show day! The Redwood City Main library has a really cool coffee cart right outside it and since we had the time, Tim and I sat outside, enjoyed the sunshine, and sipped some coffee before heading inside to set up. You can see a little of the building behind Tim.

It's a tough job, I know!

Seeing Signs

The Redwood City Library had LOTS of great history, reflected in it's signage. Above is the plaque affixed to the building mentioning the school that stood on that spot many years ago.



Did you know that the Redwood City Library USED to be a Fire Station? Yup, it was! And when the station was moved for the new Library, the building facade was kept intact with all it previous FD markings. Cool!

More Redwood City

Our 3rd show of the day took place at the Main Branch in Redwood City.



This branch was just gorgeous and I had a wonderful time snapping pics of the building before our show. It didn't hurt that we arrived VERY early!

Redwood City

Our June 27th shows. The first of the THREE show days.


First show: Schaberg Branch. A gorgeous day, bright and sunny. We arrived right on time (I love it when it works like that!), so we didn't have too much time to kill before the set up began. The library was small but felt so airy and light--the kind of place I could sit and read at all day! Especially when I've got so much choice!


Give me a cup of coffee and a free afternoon! I thought this show was FUN! A great start to a busy day; lots of laughs (Just what I wanted!).

Learning to Move

After a guick jaunt down south to meet our newest puppeteers, I thought it was time to resume posting! Finishing up the photos from the Guild Meeting Swazzle performed at.


Guild member Mike Wick taught a workshop on hand puppet movement for the Guild. In this photo he was discussing using a prop with your hand puppet and ways you could move to get different actions: Comical, moving the prop in ways to garner laughter; Difficult, meaning ways to move that show the action is physically demanding and Simple, just moving in a natural way. Very cool.



Here he was talking about posture and walking. I can't really do this justice without video (someday!).



That's it for today. Sorry for the big gap in posts! I'll be MUCH better now that I'm back at home!

Guild Members @ the meeting.

Mary Decker finds herself in front of the paint wall. I think this is such a great pic of Mary. I hope she likes it too :-)



The two Mikes (Wick and Nelson) talk strategy before the Guild meeting.



Mike Wick starts the Puppet Manipulation Workshop.

(more of those photos next!).

More from the Display Table

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, at our Guild Meetings, we usually have a display table for Guild Members to showcase their latest puppet work. At the June meeting, Valerie Nelson, from Magical Moonshine Puppets, brought along this awesome head she's working on. I could have stared at it for hours. It was just very interesting.



Here, you can see the back of the puppet head, revealing it's structure. I told it was interesting!

Guild Meeting

For the Guild meeting part of the day, Guild members brought puppets for the display table. Guild member Kathy brought these GREAT paper puppets! They're kits you can build! I thought they were amazing!

Here's a close-up of the Grumpy Goat!



You can find this one and more at Flying Pig's website!

Enjoy!