OCR Text |
Show ; Holiday Fun ; I ) With Shadows for i j Youngsters j ! By A. NEELY HALL ! (Copyright, by A. Neely HalL) Every boy likes to give home entertainments, en-tertainments, and probably the best time of the year is right now during the holidays when grandmother and grandfather have come to visit, and an appreciative audience is at hand. There are so many things for a boy to do during this vacation, however, that there is little time to prepare an entertainment, so I shall show you how to give a shadow exhibition, as this can be arranged In a short time. It requires only a few minutes to get the knack of shadow making, and after you have tried out the forms in the accompanying Illustrations you will find it easy to devise others. The shadows must be cast upon a sheet, and the audience must be seated seat-ed on one side of this, and the opera tor stand on the other side. It is best to hang the sheet in a doorway so the light by which the shadows are made can be confined to the screen, because the room in which the audience are seated must be dark. By hanging a dark cloth over the upper and lower portions of the doorway the area of the picture screen can be reduced to Just the size necessary, and the -covered lower portion will conceal the shadow of the boy performer's body (Fig. 1). The light for projecting shadows must be placed about five feet in back of the screen. Figs. 1 and 2 show a rabbit shadow, and how the hands are held to produce pro-duce it. Interlock your little fingers, then slide the back of your left hand over on to the back of your right hand. Form the nose and head by doubling back the first Snger of the left hand, and the ears by extending the second and third fingers, and extend ex-tend the thumb and first three fingers of the right hand for the feet. By wiggling the first finger the rabbit can be made to nibble. The alligator shadow (Fig. 3) is a one-hand shadow made with the aid of two pieces of cardboard notched along their edges to form teeth (Fig. 4). Fig. 3 shows how the teeth are held between the extended fingers, and how CD cp the alligator's eye is formed by light passing through an opening between the first and second fingers. With your free hand give the alligator things to eat. His eating will greatly amuse your audience. With modifications, modifica-tions, a snake's head can be formed with your arm extended for its body. Fig. 5 shows a wolf's head, and Fig. 6 a donkey's. Both are formed by placing the palms of the hands together, to-gether, with thumbs up for ears, the first fingers drawn In for the forehead, fore-head, and the -little fingers dropped for the lower jaw. These shadows are a good example of how different figures are produced by extending or bending the fingers. The duck's head (Fig. 7) is a simple one-hand shadow. By dropping and raising Vie little finger the duck appears ap-pears to open and close its bill. It can be made to snap at flies very naturally. Santa Claus' profile (Fig. 8) requires re-quires a cardboard hat (Fig. 9). The first finger forms the nose, the second and third fingers the lips, and a piece of cotton held between the third and , fourth fingers makes the whiskers. j |