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A simple folded paper puppet that can be adapted to many different kinds of animal/creature puppets.

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Paper Frog Puppet Craft - Enchanted Learning Software

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A simple puppet design that could be adapted for different types of animals.

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chinese lion dragon chinese dance chinese new year

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Chinese Lion/Dragon Toy - EnchantedLearning.com

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Make a lion (or dragon) toy for Chinese New Year.

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An example of silhouette animation done by Lotte Reiniger

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Cinderella (Aschenputtel) - Lotte Reiniger (1922)

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An example of silhouette animation done by Lotte Reiniger.

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The Magic Horse by Lotte Reiniger (1953)

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A short silhouette animation by groundbreaking German animator Lotte Reiniger, based on the famous fairy tale. Reiniger was one of the twentieth century's major animation artists, pioneering a unique and distinctive style of black and white silhouette animation in her interpretations of classic myths and fairy tales.From 1952 onwards, Reiniger, together with her husband Carl Koch, created a series of fairy-tale films for Primrose Productions based on the Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm Hauff, Hans Christian Andersen and the stories from One Thousand and One Nights.

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Template that could be used for self-portrait dolls.

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Puppets made by the artist Paul Klee for his kids.

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My kids used to beg their dad to help out with their impromptu puppet shows. He complied by having our daughter's favorite baby doll deliver an interminable curtain speech, hectoring the audience (me) to become subscribers and make donations via the small envelope they'd find tucked in their programs.

Like my husband, artist Paul Klee (1879-1940) loomed large in his child's early puppet work. To mark his son Felix's ninth birthday, Klee fashioned eight hand puppets based on stock characters from Kasperl and Gretl - Germany's answer to Punch and Judy. The boy took to them so enthusiastically that his dad kept going, creating something in the neighborhood of fifty puppets between 1916 and 1925. The cast soon expanded to include cartoonish political figures, a self-portrait, and less recognizable characters with a decidedly Dada-ist bent. Klee also fixed Felix up with a flea market frame that served as the proscenium for the shows he put on in a doorway of the family's tiny apartment.

When Felix set out into the world at the age of eighteen, he packed his favorite childhood puppets, while his dad hung onto the ones born of his years on the faculty of the Bauhaus. Felix's portion of the collection was almost entirely destroyed during the bombing of Wurzburg in World War II. Dr. Death was the only member of the original eight to escape unscathed.

You can find a gallery of Klee's puppets here, and a book dedicated to Klee's puppetry here.
Follow Open Culture on If you'd like to support Open Culture and our mission, please consider making a donation to our site. It's hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us provide the best free cultural and educational materials. Related Content: Tchaikovsky Puppet in Timelapse Film Puppet Making with Jim Henson: A Priceless Primer from 1969 Bauhaus, Modernism & Other Design Movements Explained by New Animated Video Series Free: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Offer 474 Free Art Books Online Ayun Halliday is okay with puppets as long as she can hold them at arm's length. Follow her @AyunHalliday share intelligent media with your friends. Or better yet, sign up for our daily email and get a daily dose of Open Culture in your inbox.

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The Hand Puppets That Bauhaus Artist Paul Klee Made for His Young Son

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My kids used to beg their dad to help out with their impromptu puppet shows. He complied by having our daughter's favorite baby doll deliver an interminable curtain speech, hectoring the audience (me) to become subscribers and make donations via the small envelope they'd find tucked in their programs.