Dragon Rider Stick Puppet

Inspiration

antasy has always been part of who I am. Dreaming of an enchanted forest inhabited by fantastic creatures I had read in books was a pastime of mine. Thus, it comes as no surprise that I often would tell my children tales about fairies, gnomes, elves, mermaids and dragons. Some of them I had read as a child, and some of them sprung from my imagination. Michael, my son, had a very vivid imagination, and still does. His imaginary world was called Michael’s World. One would say that naming his world after him was not very creative. But Michael got to be the protagonist of all the adventures that took place in his magical world. Thus, naming it Michael’s World made a lot of sense. Michael’s World was to him, what Neverland was to Peter Pan. Michael always had a new story to share at the dinner table. As the dreamer that he was, he would spend all day crafting in his mind this never-ending story. Some nights, he was a knight in shiny armor. Other times, he was an astronaut walking on a planet in a faraway galaxy. But very often, he was a Dragon Rider taming a dragon that he would name later Michael, of course.

Despite how easy it was for Michael to dream these fantastic stories that had infinite twists and turns, reading was another story. Books were a mystery to him. Unlocking the meaning of the words on the page was puzzling and frustrating. Knowing that these pages were filled with marvelous stories, and unable to decipher their meaning was certainly defeating. One day, with the help of a tutor, we went down to basics. Finally, phonetics, and phonemic awareness triumphed over the whole language approach to reading that his kindergarten teacher was using. As Michael discovered the rules about how letters went together to make specific sounds, the pages of simple early readers became the juice that fueled his travels around his own Michael’s World.

Finding books with subjects that would appeal to Michael became one of my primary jobs. Along with Sally, the owner, at that time, of the children’s book store Cover-to-Cover, we set out to find all the books with Dragon Riders that we could get our hands on. And so, we fed Michael one dragon book after another. To our delight, we saw how he unlocked the process of reading, one dragon book at a time. Although, it was not until Michael lost himself in the pages of Eragon, that Michael truly mastered reading. I remember his apprehension when he saw how thick the book was. But as he became Eragon himself, the Dragon Rider, he devoured the book within days. So, I designed this Dragon Ornament to celebrate all the children who, like Michael, dream of riding on the back of a dragon.

Dragon Rider Stick Puppet Ornament Design Process

My inspiration for this Dragon Rider ornament, besides all the detailed descriptions found in Michael’s favorite dragon books, was a blue stuffed dragon that Michael received for one of his birthdays.

Wanting to have several color choices, I selected blue, purple and red to be the primary colors for the dragons. I used stretchy material lined with stretchy interfacing to make the bodies. I used a complementary material for the wings. The wings are made from two different materials fused together. This way, I could have two different colors. One on the outside and one for the underside of the wing. This combination made the color palette even richer. I chose vibrant colors, since my dragons are friendly, even though I showed them spewing fire. I used cellophane for the fire. For the eyes, I chose googly eyes to accentuate their friendliness, and old rickrack to trim the dragon’s tail. To complete the dragon, I made little horns with white baked clay and covered them with glitter.

The Dragon Rider is wearing a cape made from felt. He is also wearing a simple peasant-looking-hat and simple armor made from metallic ribbon. He has a belt and a sword affixed at his waist. I made the sword from the teeth of a plastic silver fork. As the sword’s hilt, I used a tile laying spacer.