WA MUSEUM volunteer and former milliner Peter Norrish has expanded his skill-set to puppet making.
Mr Norrish, who has been helping educate children at the Dinosaur Discovery: Lost Creatures of the Cretaceous exhibition, utilised his hat making know-how to create a friendlier face for young visitors.
In his own time, he made a puppet of the Australia dinosaur Leaellynasaura, which was believed to be furry or have feathers.
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READ NOW“A couple of us volunteers used Eric the mascot, who is a velocitator, to talk to the kids and while I was doing it we were talking about the Leaellynasaura, which I didn’t know about before I started and it is an Australian one,” Mr Norrish said.
“And because of its size and temperament and type of animal it was, I thought it would make a better connection and interaction with kids.”
Mr Norrish said he had never made a puppet before but his existing skills helped him.
“I’d never made a puppet before, but 30 years ago I’d made costume accessories for productions, I’d done a bit of millinery making, hats, suits of armour,” he said.
“The challenge for me was to put eyes in the puppet that focussed on the same point.”
The exhibition is at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre until January 28.
The remains of the Leaellynasaura were dug out of the solid rocks of Dinosaur Cove in the south east of Australia.
It was a small turkey-sized herbivorous Ornithopod that was around during the Cretaceous period.
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