I teach a lot of short, pop-up workshops where people of wildly different ages and abilities come together around one tiny, brilliant problem: how to make a little cardboard automaton that moves. Ten minutes sounds impossibly brief, but with a little planning you can design a session that feels...
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DIY Projects
I love making miniature water because it’s one of those deceptively simple...
DIY Projects
I love making small, peculiar objects that ask you to lean in. This whispering...
DIY Projects
I like to keep a small maker’s kit with me almost all the time — tucked...
Tutorials
I love the little illusion of glass in scaled-down worlds: a tiny bottle that...
When I'm building a tiny paper automaton, a cardboard puppet or a fabric-wrapped wooden prop, the wrong glue can turn a playful afternoon into an exercise in frustration. Over the years I've learned to run a few quick tests before committing to a...
I love the way a well-made prop can tell a story before anyone reads a single word. A sun-faded book cover, a box with flaking paint, or a faded poster edge can instantly place a scene in a different time. Over the years I've experimented with all...
I like small challenges. They force you to make decisions quickly, to invent constraints that sharpen rather than limit, and to find delight in tiny details. Planning a mini exhibition inside a single shoebox is one of my favourite kinds of...
I love telling very small stories that do double duty: they charm the viewer and quietly teach a making technique. A three-panel visual fable is perfect for that. It’s short enough to keep a single, satisfying narrative beat but long enough to...
I love the way ordinary things carry invisible stories: a chipped porcelain button, a length of brass tubing, a toy soldier missing an arm. Turning these found fragments into a sculptural narrative is one of my favorite creative games. It’s equal...
I often get asked how a small idea — a doodle in the corner of my sketchbook — becomes a little mechanical prop that actually moves. Designing tiny paper-and-cardboard mechanisms is one of my favourite ways to combine storytelling and craft: you...
I have a soft spot for things that transform the ordinary into something a little magical — a cereal box becomes a stage, a bit of wire becomes a puppet armature, and a bedside lamp turns into a spotlight. This shadow puppet theater is one of...
I often get asked how to translate a studio tutorial—one that I designed for a quiet, curious afternoon in my own workspace—into something that works for a classroom full of makers ranging from seven to seventeen. Over the years of running...
I love making small paintings that feel expansive — pieces that, at arm’s length, glow with the same presence you’d expect from a larger canvas. There’s a little sleight-of-hand to it: you don’t need more surface area to create depth,...
I have a soft spot for experiments that misbehave. There’s a distinct kind of magic that comes out of a failed attempt — a smudge that looks like a map, a torn edge that suggests a silhouette, a mechanism that squeaks in a way that feels...