Puppet making workshop with artist John Powell-Jones

Design and construct your own movable split-pin puppet, suitable for stop-motion animation!

Artist John Powell-Jones will lead this exciting workshop, drawing inspiration from his graphic novel and upcoming performance piece The Crocodile of Sadness (Lowry, wed 10 Jun 2026).

Participants will design and construct their own movable puppets using the templates provided, or simply their imagination, to create original characters. Each participant will leave with their finished puppet, along with a worksheet guide to using them for stop-motion animation at home.
This workshop is aimed at people who are interested in storytelling and creating puppets for stop-motion animation. Starting with simple 2D cardboard techniques. No prior experience needed. Children are welcome to attend but must be supervised by an adult.

The workshop will include an overview of The Crocodile of Sadness project which demonstrates John Powell-Jones’s signature mix of horror, folklore and the visual language of videogames, to create speculative worlds populated by mutated beings and unstable technologies. The Crocodile of Sadness explores the pressure of carrying things alone, grief, care and the importance of taking shared responsibility. The project is a significant new development in Powell-Jones’s art practice which examines how power, ideology and myth shape perceptions of the body, the other and the future.

Image

• Still from The Crocodile of Sadness animation. Split pint animated painting. 2026, courtesy of the artist