The Magical Moonshine Theatre

We have the first gallery of photos from the parade up on the website.  See them at http://magicalmoonshine.org/giantliberty.htm

Marc Garman put together this video interview about the Lady Liberty Giant Puppet 
http://vimeo.com/12897060

Photos and more to follow, but, thanks to approximately 30 wonderful volunteers who operated puppets and sailed around the statue of Liberty in little boats, and brought food and good cheer and a great sense of celebration, and a joyous willingness to jump in and do things they maybe had never done before, we had a great parade.  Beautiful weather and good crowd reaction to the puppets and ensemble completed the scene.
We should have pictures from the photographer later today.
Happy Independence Day to All!

Yesterday we had some great help from Sue Brinton and Nancy Gilman.  Sue did some fine detail painting on the Lady, and worked on the torch flame (no real flames for this Lady.)  Nancy helped spruce up the Vallejos and did the final detail painting on the tablet the Lady carries.  
In the meanwhile, more and more "boat people" are signing on, meaning a flotilla of boats must be constructed and fast!  Including boats for baby carriages!  Busy, busy.

Sue paints the Lady's helmet.

Torch painting detail.  Flames are next.

Nancy gives Mariano Vallejo a manicure so he will look his best in the parade.

"Give me your tired..."   Big Thanks to Nancy and Sue.

With Valerie, Nancy, and Sue working on the "human" puppets, Michael headed off to the Mare Island Preserve Visitor Center to work on the currently headless horse, fine tuning the walking mechanism and discovering all kinds of stress points and trying to strengthen them with not enough time, and no electricity.  Today the horse gets moved to the parade route where it will wait in its "stable" until parade day.

Today: clothing details, tried the puppet out on the backpack frame, walking around the yard (doesn't like wind but none of these giants do.) Now down to the details.  Spend the second half of the day working on the horse head.  We are finding a lot of pins and needles on the head, still attached to thread and holding stuff up.  I guess we ran out of time last year.  Also, it was hard for everyone working on the horse head, as it was 12 feet in the air...not so comfortable to work on...the feet were all done!  Hmmm.

The ladder is 8 feet tall, for scale.
FYI:  Things that worked:  3M spray adhesive, hot glue, sewing, thermo plastic mesh, silk.
Things that did not work:  Krylon plastic paint ("no prep, just paint it on..bonds to plastic") - scratched right off, craft knives (blades just kept falling out), drills (of my three, none of them worked all the time).
Things yet to find:  Good bamboo of the right length!

I had to go get the giant puppets (General and Mrs. Vallejo) from the fair today (they won the blue ribbon for best booth for the Vallejo booth) and go to the last 4th of July planning meeting, but still we are pretty much on schedule for the dressing of the Lady Liberty.  No final photos of her clothes at the end of the day, as the wind came up and we had to lower her, but below are a few earlier views.

Today we started work early because costuming the giant had to be done before our coastal breezes come up.  Well, they never came, and, while we planned to stop and about 1:00 and take the afternoon off for some much needed recreation (of some kind!) we ended up working all day anyway.

In a fit of "desire for perfection" I decided that the hand was holding the torch at the wrong angle (Valerie thought so too) and so I tore into the finished hand and wrist and arm, destroying and rebuilding.  I imagine no one else would have cared, but here you can see where I have put them back together (just when we thought papier mache-ing was over forever!)

To the left and in the photo below you can see the pin and groove system I devised to make stops in the movement of the arms and in this case, the wrist, to keep them from going farther than looks normal.  The pin fits in the groove and prevents movement beyond a certain point.

It was just the three of us working today.  Here Valerie takes a break from sewing the gown to contemplate Bellas hard work.

Bella's technique in detail, for those who want to study her "style."

And also, at the end of the day we are too tired to write much.  Today is Saturday.  Tomorrow is one week until the parade.  We had great help today from Jessie (again!  Yay Jessie!  Loyal Puppet Builder!) and Ilona and her son, Tenzin, who is good with a hot glue gun! (photos below.)  Tomorrow in the morning, when the wind is low, we begin the costume!

Ilona works on the boat prototype here (below is Valerie demonstrating it.  Ilona's son, Tenzin, above, hot glues supports on the spikes.

Just Valerie and me.  Slogging along.  More papier mache-ing, and starting to paint.  Body tomorrow, and clothes over the weekend.  Enjoy the photos.

The title says it all.  Today, besides all the gluing and drying, I started painting the head, made the sausage curls (she does have them!) and made some headway on the torch.  Photos below.