I want to make a puppet who also can sign. I mean really sign so that deaf childeren (and adults too) can follow it. What I was wondering about is the fact that when you sign the signing is half of the understanding what yoy are saying the other half is your expression in face (and body). I think the kids miss the most of the messing because the miss your expression . The look to the puppet and not to my face.
Is that true,  who has worked with a signpuppet and helps me to overcome this issue...........

By the way I want to make the puppet who can sits on my lap and has 5 fingers on each hand.

In my opinion it will require two puppeteers to do what you are trying to do.  One to sign and the other to opperate the head. 

Making the hands work is the simplest thing.  You simply make five fingered gloves that fit close enough that they don't obscure the signing. 

The emotion and energy that is communicated by the face of the signer is the part that will be up to the ability of the puppeteer.  A good puppeteer can translate enough of that energy to the puppet to express the emotion, energy and attitude of the character.  But to do this well will take practice and experience.

I think its great that you want to do this and I encourage you to follow through on your dream.  So often the deaf community miss out on so much of what is offerer because people simply don't make an effort to include them.

I take it that you already know how to sign.  Why not try to introduce a puppet that can understand signing but can't sign back.  When I was in college I had a hand puppet that I called Mutey.  He was a little mouse.  I couldn't think of a good voice for him so I told people he couldn't talk.  Well I learned how to make different expressions with his posture and movements and after a while my friends started relating to Mutey almost as if he was real.  They would talk to him and I would make him communicate back with his gestures and they learned how to ask questions so that he could answer them.  It was fun.  And sometimes a little uncomfortable because they would sometimes tell mutey some very personal things.

Anyway, enough of my story telling.  Keep working on your project and let us know what you come up with.

I made my glove puppets with this exact thing in mind.  I do simple signs with them for my shows.  You can take a look at some of them in my shop and create your own.  I think the kind of puppet you are thinking of is one that you can slip your own hands into.  I would think it would be more like a doll that would sit on your lap that has sleeves you can slip your arms into and then your hands become his/her hands.  If it is just you doing the work and you want to sign with both hands, then I don't think you will be able to have a moving mouth for your puppet....which is fine.  I like non moving mouth puppets the best because you can be really creative and imaginative.  That's why I like punch and judy style puppets.  Anyways, good luck with your project because this one if very influential to the art of puppetry....keep up the FANTASTIC ideas!!!

My glove puppet pics:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=9771017

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=9933318

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=8931279

This last one has a youtube video link so you can see how it moves.


Aloha,
Nikole

I want to expand a bit on what Jon and PuppetsAndPals posted.  I agree that the mouth does not have to move.  If the puppet is sitting your lap you slip your hands into their arms and have close fitting gloves as Jon mentioned.  Then you have a strap that goes around your neck that holds the weight of the puppet. The expression needed actually comes from your own face that is above the puppets.   If you think of it the fact that the puppets mouth really makes sense. When a person signs they don't normally move their mouth. 

About the expression coming from the puppeteers face...  I think you're right.  When ventriloquists using a dummy want to give the impression of a puppets mood a lot of it comes from their own reaction to the puppet.  The ventrioquist will looked shocked, sympathetic, etc.  Matching the desired mood of the puppet.

So if you're working the puppet solo you work as Shawn suggested.  The deaf audience will pair your facial expressions with your puppet and nothing will be lost.

Actually the mouth and WHOLE face uses many expressions during the process of signing.  I think this would be a challenge to do with just a puppet, however I think that Shawns idea is the best yet, to make this idea come to life.  I think this is why we don't see any sign language puppets due to the multitude of movement involved which would be hard to duplicate.

Daryl H

Hi,

I do not know if this will help but here goes...My girls and son both learned sign language from a set of videos called Baby Signs...in this series of videos was a puppet bear name Beebo who teaches the kids how to sign and they used a simple stuffed bear with some hands to do the signing...you can check it out here at www.babysigns.com

i hope this helps in some way,

Sincerely,


Spoon, 

I learn my own son to sign, I do it to make sign of my own. My two daughters learn it aswell.
I don't agree that deaf won't use their mouth they move their mouth to form the word they are saying........... Some words have the same sign for different spoken words.
Yes you can do a sort of mime act with your puppet for the deaf but I want an inter action with the kids...........

a question
what kind of sign do you use.....
Is the puppet speaking and the sign helps to understand what you are saying or is it only sign. There is a different between them only sign isn't possibly I think and thats what I.m talking about. The language with sign its easier to do with a puppet......