Community shadow-puppet workshops and bespoke animation commissions by Loïs Cordelia


Behind the Scenes of Quinn's Abyss, for the Edinburgh Festival, August 2026

Welcome to the magical world of shadow-puppet theatre and animation. Combining papercutting, stop-motion, real-time animation, lighting effects, storytelling, lots of fun, laughter, outtakes and imagination, Loïs offers beginners' level community shadow-puppet workshops as well as bespoke animation commissions. She also regularly collaborates with and creates shadow-puppets for Peoplescape Theatre. Shadow-puppets are a refreshing antidote to today's overly perfect digital and AI animation, evocative of nostalgia and past times, gloriously full of fun and quirky human handmade imperfection. 



Shadow puppetry is a traditional activity that appeals to every age group. It is an ancient art and a living folk tradition in China, India, Iran and Nepal. It is also known in Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Germany, France, and the United States. It is found in popular culture, including films, musicals, television shows, music videos, and video games. Silhouettes allow the viewer to fill in details of skin, hair and eye colour with their own imagination, hence the same figure can be relatable to many viewers. Papercutting itself goes back to the ancient royal courts of China but is similarly a living folk art tradition in many parts of the world to this day. It was popular in Europe in the Georgian and Victorian periods and is enjoying something of a rennaissance today.



Bespoke Shadow-Puppet Animations on Historical and Heritage themes

The following is a series of short, silent, heritage-themed shadow-puppet animations, commissioned by National Trust in the Midlands for their social media channels from 2018 onwards. Some films use stop-motion, some real-time animation. Atmospheric lighting and natural plant pigments (tea and coffee) combine with handmade papercut shadow-puppets to evoke bygone days.

A Georgian Christmas

A Georgian Christmas (Nov 2023), referencing the Rotunda and the Georgian Theatre Royal at Bury St Edmunds - mostly animated in real time, using articulated shadow-puppets with rods.
A Georgian Christmas

Lest We Forget (2021): shadow-puppet and coffee pigment stop-motion animation
Lest We Forget - National Trust in the Midlands .
The film references the following National Trust properties and WW1/WW2 connections:

Melford Hall, fields of poppies in the Suffolk countryside
Attingham Hall and WW1 convalescence ward
Belton Hall WW1 Hospital
Oxburgh Hall and Upton Hall Kitchen Garden, Dig for Victory
Tranmer House, Sutton Hoo
Women's Land Army, Lumberjills of the Women's Timber Corps, Culford, Suffolk
Sheringham Hall, Sheringham Park and Pillbox
Dunwich Heath, Operation Kruschen 1943
Clumber Park Memorial
Blickling Hall RAF Oulton, Norfolk

Loïs painted each scene using coffee pigment to suggest the inky sepia tone of old photographs, adding small amounts of finer detail digitally. Each human figure is cut out of paper and hinged with paper fasteners to articulate the movement of limbs and gestures one frame at a time. It takes at least an hour to create a second's worth of stop-motion footage.

Lest We Forget VE Day (2020) - created using tea and coffee pigments - see behind the scenes Lest We Forget - VE Day



WWi Centenary 1918 - 2018

Created for projection onto the facade of Sheringham Hall, Norfolk, to mark the silence on 11th November 2018
Lest We Forget 1918 - 2018




Portable DIY Shadow Theatre

Loïs adapts a heavy duty racking unit to build her own portable DIY shadow theatre, attaching lamps, diffusion screens, cameras and mirrors where needed. Shadow puppets are cut out of 300 gsm card for durability, often incorporating scrap card to add tiny details, hinged with staples or scraps of wire to make articulated limbs, hands, feet, etc., and animated using bicycle spokes attached with masking tape to the relevant extremities.

Beginners' Level Community Co-creation Workshops

Using a fully sustainable range of materials and tools including card, paper, scissors, pattern shears, punches, string, masking tape and bicycle spokes, we create shadow puppets to populate and animate the film’s narratives. Fold-cut symmetry is a particularly speedy and effective technique. Collaborative shadow puppet theatre actively engages every participant. Storytelling is an inherent and often spontaneous element when shadow puppets begin to interact and take on a life of their own.

The Northern Lights and Beyond - A' the Airts Community Arts Centre, January 2026
Inspired by recent sightings of the Northern Lights in South-west Scotland. But who knows where we're headed...!


Valentine's Shadow Puppets - A' the Airts Community Arts Centre, February 2026
Celebrating Valentine's Day and early signs of Spring


We Wish You A Merry Christmas - A' the Airts Community Arts Centre, December 2025


Hallowe'en Shadow Puppets - A' the Airts Community Arts Centre, October 2025
Halloween Shadow Puppets